brown

plural browns · alternative Northumbria broon

1. countableuncountableA colour like that of chocolate or coffee.

   He wore brown jeans for his birthday.

   1 more example

   The browns and greens in this painting give it a nice woodsy feel.

2. countableball gamesOne of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
3. uncountableBlack tar heroin.
4. archaiccountableslangA copper coin.

   "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

   2 more examples

   “To save a journey up the town, / A razor lent here for a brown: / But if you think the price too high, / I beg you won’t the razor try.”

   1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861

   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

5. countableuncountableA 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. capitalizedcountableethnicinformalslursometimesA person of mostly Latin American (or Latino), Middle Eastern/North African, South Asian, and sometimes Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or rarely Native American 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

   1 more example

   For example, a Brown Asian Caucus emerged at the inaugural National Conference on Asian American Mental Health in 1972 – where Filipinos were joined by Pacific Islanders who also felt marginalized as part of the Asian American/ Pacific Islander (AAPI) umbrella group.

   2020, Kevin L. Nadal, The Brown Asian American Movement: Advocating for South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Filipino American Communities

7. countableuncountablebiologyAny of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae), such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
8. countableinformaluncountableA brown trout (Salmo trutta).
9. countableuncountablehobbiesA 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

   1 more example

   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

10. countableuncountableA brown dye or pigment.
11. countableuncountableA pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of brown pigment.

comparative browner · comparative more brown · superlative brownest · superlative most brown · alternative Northumbria broon

1. Having a brown color/colour.

   But none of those brown dwarfs were speeding along on a trajectory that would carry them out of the galaxy like “runaway” hypervelocity stars observed by astronomers in the last two decades.

   2024 August 21, Ashley Strickland, “An unusual object is moving so fast it could escape the Milky Way. Scientists aren’t certain what it is”, in CNN, archived from the original on 24 Aug 2024

2. obsoleteGloomy.
3. Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.
   1. UScapitalizedsometimesLatino/Latin American

      1 more example

      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.

      2015 November 2 [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 03 Nov 2015, Grade Point

   2. USbroadlycapitalizedsometimesvagueof color.

      By Saad’s accounting – and this is not dissimilar from the white nationalist “great replacement theory” – western societies are bringing about their own destruction by admitting immigrants from poorer, browner and more Muslim countries.

      2025 April 8, Julia Carrie Wong, “Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2025

   3. capitalizedsometimesSouth Asian or sometimes Middle Eastern or North African

      2 more examples

      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.

      2021 September 9, Aasif Mandvi, quotee, “Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with Aasif Mandvi”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2023

      What’s interesting, when you look past all the hysterical bullshit about brown people and trans kids and the imaginary woke mind virus, is that Hanson’s new converts in Farrer and South Australia are angry about the same shit as everyone else, whether that’s a Lebanese-Australian bricklayer in Claymore, an Indian dental nurse in Ipswich, or some lentil-muffin-eating, lumpy-jumper-wearing goat yoga enthusiast in Teal Town.

      2026 June 3, John Birmingham, “Neoliberalism ate the world. Enter: Pauline Hanson”, in Crikey, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2026

   4. capitalizedsometimesSoutheast Asian, Pacific Islander, or sometimes Native American

      1 more example

      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.

      2020 September 25, Eric J. Daza, “How A 'Secret Asian Man' Embraced Anti-Racism”, in LAist, archived from the original on 23 Apr 2021, Essays

4. Not green (environmentally irresponsible); anti-green (against environmental protection).

   Near-synonyms: nongreen, antigreen

   1 more example

   Tesco and Sainsbury, two of Britain’s biggest retailers, are locked in a fierce battle to prove who is greener. Even BSkyB, the British satellite outpost of the distinctly brown Murdoch empire, has declared itself “carbon-neutral.”

   2011, Adrian Wooldridge, Masters of Management: How the Business Gurus and Their Ideas Have Changed the World — for Better and for Worse, HarperCollins Business, page 48

   Synonyms: nongreen, antigreen

present singular third person browns · participle present browning · participle past browned · past browned · alternative Northumbria broon

1. intransitiveTo become brown.

   Fry the onions until they brown.

   2 more examples

   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, →ISBN, page 269

   Don't microwave your milk too long It browns and bubbles over

   2019, Patricia Taxxon, “Cold Water”, in Doraemon

   Synonyms: embrown, brownify

2. childishSynonym of poop (“to defecate”).

   I've just browned myself.

   Synonyms: poop

3. transitivecookingTo 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

4. intransitivetransitiveTo tan.

   Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun.

5. transitiveTo 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

   Synonyms: embrown

6. transitiveTo 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

7. derogatoryethnicintransitiveoffensiveslangslurtransitiveusuallydemographicsTo turn progressively more Hispanic or Latino, in the context of the population of a geographic region.

   the browning of America

plural Browns · alternative Browne · alternative Broun

1. countableA surname.

   (The Browns gave the Obamas an ornate penholder made from the timber of a Victorian antislave ship.)

   2009 March 4, Helene Cooper, “Obama’s Star Turn at Summit Gets Mixed Results”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Feb 2022

   2 more examples

   After 170 years this is the closest Auckland has come to having a brown mayor. Sure he's a Palagi. But his name is Brown, he's run Manukau for a long time and there's heaps of brown people there so he's gladly owned by many in the Pacific Community.

   2010 October 10, Oscar Kightley, New Zealand Herald

   In his cast of characters, you really see a disproportionate focus, I think, on Black women - on Kamala Harris, who he's insinuated only has her job today because of who she dated; to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who he's demanded the LSAT scores of - I don't recall him demanding the LSAT scores for Brett Kavanaugh - Karine Jean-Pierre.

   2022 May 12, Dave Davies, “Has Tucker Carlson created the most racist show in the history of cable news?”, in NPR, spoken by Nicholas Confessore, archived from the original on 28 Jun 2023

   1. countableuncountableAn English and Scottish surname transferred from the nickname.
   2. countableuncountableAn Irish surname of Anglo-Norman origin, a translation of de Brún.
2. A locale in the United States.
   1. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in California; named for hotelier George Brown.
   2. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Louisiana; named for landowner George W. Brown.
   3. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Oklahoma; named for postmaster Robert H. Brown.
   4. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in West Virginia; named for early settler John Brown.
   5. countableuncountableA ghost town in Nevada.
   6. countableuncountableA number of townships in the United States, listed under Brown Township.
3. countableuncountableBrown University.

plural Browns

1. Alternative letter-case form of brown (“person with a dark complexion”).

comparative more Brown · superlative most Brown

1. CanadaUKUSoftenAlternative letter-case form of brown (“of a dark complexion”).