brown

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A colour like that of chocolate or coffee.

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

   “He wore brown jeans for his birthday.”

2. (countable)One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
3. (uncountable)Black tar heroin.
4. (archaic, countable, slang)A copper coin.

   ““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.””

   “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).”

   “"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.”

5. (countable, uncountable)A brown horse or other animal.

   “[…] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.”

6. (capitalized, countable, ethnic, informal, slur, sometimes)A 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.”

   “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.”

7. (countable, uncountable)Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae), such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
8. (countable, informal, uncountable)A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
9. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “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.”

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

adj

1. Having a brown 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.”

2. (obsolete)Gloomy.
3. (US, capitalized, sometimes)Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.

   “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.”

4. (US, broadly, capitalized, sometimes)Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.
5. (capitalized, sometimes)Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.
6. (capitalized, sometimes)Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.

   “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.”

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

   “Near-synonyms: nongreen, antigreen”

   “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.””

8. (Canada, UK, US, alt-of, often)Alternative letter-case form of brown (“of a dark complexion”).

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.”

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

2. poop.

   “i've just browned myself.”

3. (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, […]”

4. (intransitive, transitive)To tan.

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

5. (transitive)To make brown or dusky.

   “A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves, / Browns the dim void and darkens deep the groves.”

6. (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.”

7. (derogatory, ethnic, intransitive, offensive, slang, slur, transitive, usually)To turn progressively more Hispanic or Latino, in the context of the population of a geographic region.

   “the browning of America”

name

1. (countable)A surname.

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

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. (countable, uncountable)A surname.
3. (countable, uncountable)A surname.
4. (countable, uncountable)A locale in the United States.
5. (countable, uncountable)A locale in the United States.
6. (countable, uncountable)A locale in the United States.
7. (countable, uncountable)A locale in the United States.
8. (countable, uncountable)A locale in the United States.
9. (countable, uncountable)A locale in the United States.
10. (countable, uncountable)Brown University.