Roan means having a coat of mixed white and coloured hairs. A blue roan, a strawberry roan, roan cattle.
The white hairs are mixed evenly through the coat rather than patched, and the head and legs stay dark, which is what distinguishes a roan from a grey — and a roan does not lighten with age as a grey does. Blue roan is black with white and strawberry roan is chestnut with white.
1adjectiveroanHaving a coat of mixed white and coloured hairs.
“The roan pony looked grey from far away, but up close its coat was red and white.”
roan is a coat colour.
Middle French roan probably comes from Spanish roano, itself perhaps from a Germanic word for red.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁rewdʰ-
osp
raudano
Spanish
roano
Middle French
roan
English, today
roan
Built from
From Middle French roan, probably from Spanish roano, from osp raudano, itself probably of gem - origin (compare Gothic, accusative of 𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌸𐍃 (“red”). Compare rowan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA