# brown

Pronunciation: say "BROWN" /bɹaʊn/

## Adjective

1. Having a color like that of chocolate, coffee, or wood.
   - Simple: Having the color of chocolate, coffee, or dry earth.
   - _The hikers followed a brown dirt path through the woods._
   - _Her brown leather boots were scuffed from the long trip._
5. Relating to people with brown skin, such as Latino, South Asian, Middle Eastern, or Pacific Islander people, often as an identity label.
   - Simple: Used about people with brown skin, such as people from Latin America, South Asia, or the Middle East.
   - _The policy disproportionately affected brown communities._
   - _She advocates for brown and indigenous voices in publishing._
12. Damaging to the environment, or opposed to environmental protection; the antonym of green.
   - Simple: Bad for the environment, or against efforts to protect it.
   - _Activists labeled the coal expansion a brown agenda dressed up in clean language._
   - _Voters punished the party for its brown stance on emissions._

## Noun

2. A color resembling that of chocolate or coffee.
   - Simple: A dark color like chocolate or coffee.
   - _The designer chose a warm brown for the living room walls._
   - _Deep browns and oranges dominated the painter's fall palette._
7. A person with brown skin, typically of Latin American, Middle Eastern, North African, or South Asian descent, and sometimes of Pacific Islander or Native American background. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A person with brown skin, often someone whose family comes from Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, or South Asia.
   - _At the community meeting, one speaker said rising rents had pushed blacks and browns out of the neighborhood they had built._
   - _In his stand-up act, he joked that browns get mistaken for every nationality except their own._
6. A freshwater fish of the species Salmo trutta, the brown trout. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A type of trout with a brownish body, often caught in rivers and streams.
   - _She hooked a two-pound brown on her first cast._
   - _Anglers prize the wild browns of these chalk streams._
8. A horse or other animal having a brown coat.
   - Simple: A horse or other animal with a brown coat.
   - _The jockey rode the brown to a narrow victory._
   - _She preferred the steady brown to the skittish chestnut._
9. In snooker, the colored ball that scores four points when potted.
   - Simple: A ball used in the game of snooker that is worth four points.
   - _She lined up the brown carefully before sinking it into the corner pocket._
   - _After potting the yellow and the green, he needed the brown to stay in the frame._
10. Heroin, especially in the form of a brown powder. *(slang)*
   - Simple: The illegal drug heroin, often sold as a brown powder.
   - _Police seized nearly a kilo of brown during the raid._
   - _The brown sold on that corner was unusually potent._

## Verb

3. To cook food until its surface develops a brown color.
   - Simple: To cook food until its surface turns brown.
   - _Brown the chicken thighs on both sides before you pour in the stock._
   - _He browned the flour and butter to form the base of the sauce._
4. To become brown, or to make something brown, as when fruit darkens in air or skin tans in the sun.
   - Simple: To turn brown, or to make something turn brown, like a cut apple or skin in the sun.
   - _Sliced avocados brown quickly when exposed to air._
   - _The grass had begun to brown under the summer heat._
11. To become, or to cause a region's population to become, progressively more Hispanic or Latino. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To slowly become, or make a place become, more Hispanic or Latino in its population.
   - _Pundits fretted that the heartland was browning with each new census._
   - _Editorials warned that migrants would brown the suburbs within a generation._

## Noun

13. A copper coin of low value. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A coin made of copper, worth only a little.

## Adjective

14. Gloomy; melancholy or somber in mood. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Sad, dark, and gloomy in mood.

## Other meanings

- (noun) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the subfamily Satyrinae, typically dull-colored, such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
- (verb) To finish metal, especially gun barrels, with a thin layer of oxide that gives it a bright brown color.
- (noun) A dense mass of birds or animals fired at as a whole, rather than by singling out an individual target.

## Origin

Old English brūn ("brown, dark, dusky") became Middle English broun. It traces back to Proto-Germanic *brūnaz and probably, in the end, to a Proto-Indo-European root. Dutch bruin, German braun, and Latin brunneus ("brown") are related.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/brown (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).