brown

1. (obsolete) Gloomy.obsolete

2. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.Examples: "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."UScapitalizedsometimes

3. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.USbroadlycapitalizedsometimes

4. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.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."capitalizedsometimes

5. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.Examples: "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."capitalizedsometimes

1. (intransitive) To become brown.Examples: "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"Synonyms: embrown, brownifyintransitive

2. (cooking, transitive) To cook something until it becomes brown.Examples: "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, […]"transitive

3. (intransitive, transitive) To tan.Examples: "Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun."intransitivetransitive

4. (transitive) To make brown or dusky.Examples: "A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves, / Browns the dim void and darkens deep the groves."Synonyms: embrowntransitive

5. (transitive) To give a bright brown colour to, as to gun barrels, by forming a thin coating of oxide on their surface.Examples: "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."transitive

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.Examples: "the browning of America"derogatoryethnicintransitiveoffensiveslangslurtransitiveusually

1. (countable) A surname.Examples: "(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."countable

2. (countable) A surname.countableuncountable

3. (countable) A surname.countableuncountable

1. (chiefly US, often Canada and UK) Alternative letter-case form of brown (“of a dark complexion”).CanadaUKUSalt-ofoften