brown

Etymology

From Middle English broun, from Old English brūn (“brown; dark; dusky”), from Proto-West Germanic *brūn, from Proto-Germanic *brūnaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-. Doublet of bruin. cognates * Dutch bruin * German braun * Ancient Greek φρύνη (phrúnē), φρῦνος (phrûnos, “toad”) * Latin brunneus (“brown”) * Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”) * Sanskrit बभ्रु (babhrú, “reddish-brown”) * West Frisian brún

noun

1. (countable and uncountable) A colour like that of chocolate or coffee.
   The browns and greens in this painting give it a nice woodsy feel.
   brown:
2. (snooker">snooker, countable) One of the colour balls used in snooker">snooker, with a value of 4 points.
3. (uncountable) Black tar heroin.
4. (slang, archaic, countable) A copper coin.
   I know there are many persons — some who are themselves poor — who 'never turn a beggar from their door,' but always give them a few browns (halfpence) or some scran (broken victuals). 1853, Charles John Chetwynd Talbot, Meliora, Or, Better Times to Come, page 247
   "We've not had any breakfast,—won't you toss us down a brown?"— That's what they call a penny in the streets of London Town. 1883, “The Omnibus”, in London Town
5. A brown horse or other animal.
   […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish. 1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding, page 105
6. (sometimes capitalised, countable, informal) A person of Latino, Middle Eastern or South Asian descent; a brown-skinned person; someone of mulatto or biracial appearance.
   Many browns and blacks are immigrants — some of whom have not yet become naturalized citizens of the United States. 2005, Kristen A. Myers, Racetalk: Racism Hiding in Plain Sight
7. (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae).
8. (entomology) Any of certain species of nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae, such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
9. (informal) A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
10. (hunting, as "the brown") A mass of birds or animals that may be indiscriminately fired at.
    The temptation to have a shot into the brown was great. There was not a head there which was not a big one and the one by himself was not too easy a shot since it is always difficult to shoot when lying in soft snow. 1928, R. Pigot, Twenty-five Years Big Game Hunting, page 166
    My anger mounted at this, I opened the courtyard door and raised my musket to fire into the brown; I had loaded it with small shot, and if it had gone off that would have been the death of us and the ruin of all of us in the house. 1979, Kevin Andrews, Athens Alive, page 223

adj

1. Having a brown colour.
2. (obsolete) Gloomy.
3. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.
   1. (US) Latino
      Reminds me of the time they asked me and a group of other Latino, predominantly Mexican, friends for our passports when we tried to go to their [expletive] party a little over a year ago.[…] The saddest part is that I don’t think they understand why it’s insulting to ask a brown person for a passport. November 2, 2015 [2014], Susan Svrluga, quoting Ivonne Gonzalez, “Students accuse Yale SAE fraternity brother of saying ‘white girls only’ at party door”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2015-11-03, Grade Point
   2. (of Asians) South Asian
      I think they sort of realized like, oh, we have Aasif who is a Muslim, an American, brown person, you know, who can sit on that fence between cultures and sort of talk about what it is--what this is from the perspective of being an insider and an outsider at the same time.[…] I think there is in the sort of South Asian, you know, psyche, a kind of adoration of Western ideals and culture that was sort of implanted into us by the British, you know, and this idea that everything that is Western is superior and better than what we have and what India--you know, what is true to our own culture. September 9, 2021, Aasif Mandvi, quotee, “Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with Aasif Mandvi”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-03-25
   3. (of East-Eurasian ancestry) Southeast Asian
      I came to deeply embrace anti-racism in slow, sustained increments. To do so, I had to embrace my own identity as a Brown person -- and understand my own complicity in white supremacy.[…] I had grown up in an entire Southeast Asian culture that had largely been groomed, indoctrinated and brainwashed into white-centered thinking over some 450 years of colonization by our Western overlords: Spain for almost 400 years, and then the United States of America for nearly 50 years more. September 25, 2020, Eric J. Daza, “How A 'Secret Asian Man' Embraced Anti-Racism”, in LAist, archived from the original on 2021-04-23, Essays

verb

1. (intransitive) To become brown.
   Fry the onions until they brown.
   The chicken was browning nicely, the skin beginning to crisp and take on the toasty tones of oiled wood. 2006, Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Penguin Press, page 269
2. (cooking, transitive) To cook something until it becomes brown.
   Pound an onion, warm a spoonful of ghee and throw in the onion, brown it slightly, add your curry stuff, brown this till it smells pleasantly, […] 1887, Indian Cookery "Local" for Young Housekeepers: Second Edition, page 67
3. (intransitive, transitive) To tan.
   Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun.
4. (transitive) To make brown or dusky.
   A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves, / Browns the dim void and darkens deep the groves. 1807, Joel Barlow, The Columbiad
5. (transitive) To give a bright brown colour to, as to gun barrels, by forming a thin coating of oxide on their surface.
   It is mixed uniformly with olive oil, and rubbed upon the iron slightly heated, which is afterwards exposed to the air, till the wished-for degree of browning is produced. 1860, Andrew Ure, Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, page 463
6. (demography, transitive, intransitive, slang, ethnic slur, usually derogatory, offensive) To turn progressively more Hispanic or Latino, in the context of the population of a geographic region.
   the browning of America