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brown

Pronunciation: /ˈbɹaʊ̯n/

The English word “brown” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A colour like that of chocolate or coffee.
  2. One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
  3. Black tar heroin.
  4. A copper coin.
  5. A brown horse or other animal.
  6. 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.
  7. Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae), such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
  8. A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
  9. A mass of birds or animals that may be indiscriminately fired at.
  10. A brown dye or pigment.
  11. A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of brown pigment.

adjective

  1. Having a brown color/colour.
  2. Gloomy.
  3. Latino/Latin American
  4. of color.
  5. South Asian or sometimes Middle Eastern or North African
  6. Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or sometimes Native American
  7. Not green (environmentally irresponsible); anti-green (against environmental protection).

verb

  1. To become brown.
  2. Synonym of poop (“to defecate”).

Etymology

Inherited 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 * Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish brun * Ancient Greek φρύνη (phrúnē), φρῦνος (phrûnos, “toad”) * Latin brunneus (“brown”) * Lithuanian…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.