Brown is acolor. It can be thought as a darker, typically desaturated shade oforange, and can often be produced by combiningred andyellow with another color, namelyblue.[4][5][6]
In theRYB color model, brown is made by mixing the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. In theCMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining yellow ink with smaller amounts ofmagenta andblack inks. In theRGB color model used to project colors onto television screens and computer monitors, brown is the result of combining red light at low intensity, and green light at an even lower intensity, with blue light also being present in most shades of the color.
The color brown is strongly associated with, and seen widely within, thenatural world. Elements of the environment such asminerals,soil andwood are frequently brown in color; consequently, many animals have brownpelts,scales orfeathers in order to bettercamouflage themselves within their habitats. Likewise, brown is often seen in the biology ofhumans; brownhair,eye color andskin pigmentation are commonplace among humankind. The color is also frequently seen in plant-derived materials such asplant fibers,bark,fruits,nuts, andseeds.
The term is fromOld Englishbrún, in origin for any dusky or dark shade of color. The first recorded use ofbrown as a color name in English was in 1000.[7][8]TheCommon Germanic adjectives*brûnoz and *brûnâ meant both dark colors and a glistening or shining quality, whenceburnish. The current meaning developed inMiddle English from the 14th century.[9]
Words for the color brown around the world often come from foods or beverages; in the eastern Mediterranean, the word for brown often comes from the color of coffee: in Turkish, the word for brown iskahverengi; in Greek,kafé.In Portuguese, Spanish and French, the word for brown or for a specific shade of brown is derived from the word for chestnut (castanea in Latin). In Southeast Asia, the color name for brown often comes from the word for chocolate:coklat in Malay andtsokolate in Filipino. In Japan, the wordchairo means the color of tea.[10]
Brown has been used in art since prehistoric times. Paintings usingumber, a natural clay pigment composed of iron oxide and manganese oxide, have been dated to 40,000 BC.[11] Paintings of brown horses and other animals have been found on the walls of theLascaux cave dating back about 17,300 years. The female figures in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings have brown skin, painted with umber. Light tan was often used on painted Greek amphorae and vases, either as a background for black figures, or the reverse.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans produced a fine reddish-brown ink, of a color calledsepia, made from the ink of a variety ofcuttlefish. This ink was used byLeonardo da Vinci,Raphael and other artists during the Renaissance, and by artists up until the present time.
In Ancient Rome, brown clothing was associated with the lower classes or barbarians. The term for the plebeians, or urban poor, was "pullati", which meant literally "those dressed in brown".[12]
In the Middle Ages brown robes were worn by monks of theFranciscan order, as a sign of their humility and poverty. Each social class was expected to wear a color suitable to their station; and grey and brown were the colors of the poor.Russet was a coarse homespun cloth made of wool and dyed withwoad andmadder to give it a subdued grey or brown shade. By the statute of 1363, poor English people were required to wear russet. The medieval poemPiers Plowman describes the virtuous Christian:[13]
And is gladde of a goune of a graye russet As of a tunicle of Tarse or of trye scarlet.
In the Middle Ages, dark brown pigments were rarely used in art; painters and book illuminators artists of that period preferred bright, distinct colors such as red, blue and green rather than dark colors. The umbers were not widely used in Europe before the end of the fifteenth century; The Renaissance painter and writerGiorgio Vasari (1511–1574) described them as being rather new in his time.[14]
Artists began using far greater use of browns when oil painting arrived in the late fifteenth century. During the Renaissance, artists generally used four different browns; raw umber, the dark brown clay mined from the earth around Umbria, in Italy; raw sienna, a reddish-brown earth mined nearSiena, inTuscany; burnt umber, the Umbrian clay heated until it turned a darker shade, and burnt sienna, heated until it turned a dark reddish brown. In Northern Europe,Jan van Eyck featured rich earth browns in his portraits to set off the brighter colors.
Leonardo da Vinci used sepia ink, from cuttlefish, for his writing and drawing
Jan van Eyck, Portrait de Baudoin de Lannoy (1435)
The 17th and 18th century saw the greatest use of brown.Caravaggio andRembrandt Van Rijn used browns to createchiaroscuro effects, where the subject appeared out of the darkness. Rembrandt also added umber to the ground layers of his paintings because it promoted faster drying. Rembrandt also began to use new brown pigment, called Cassel earth or Cologne earth. This was a natural earth color composed of over ninety percent organic matter, such as soil and peat. It was used byRubens andAnthony van Dyck, and later became commonly known as Van Dyck brown.
Self-portrait ofRembrandt. The older Rembrandt became the more brown he used in his paintings.
Anthony van Dyck, like Rembrandt, was attached to the pigment called Cassel earth or Cologne earth; it became known as Van Dyck brown
Brown was generally hated by the French impressionists, who preferred bright, pure colors. The exception among French 19th-century artists wasPaul Gauguin, who created luminous brown portraits of the people and landscapes of French Polynesia.
In the late 20th century, brown became a common symbol in western culture for simple, inexpensive, natural and healthy. Bag lunches were carried in plain brown paper bags; packages were wrapped in plain brown paper. Brown bread and brown sugar were viewed as more natural and healthy than white bread and white sugar.
Brown is a dark orange color. It can be thought of as darkorange, but it can also be made in other ways. In theRGB color model, which uses red, green and blue light in various combinations to make all the colors on computer and television screens, it is made by mixing red and green light.
In terms of thevisible spectrum, "brown" refers to long wavelength hues,yellow,orange, orred, in combination with lowluminance orsaturation.[15]Sincebrown may cover a wide range of the visible spectrum, composite adjectives are used such as red brown, yellowish brown, dark brown or light brown.
As a color of low intensity, brown is atertiary color: a mix of the three subtractiveprimary colors is brown if thecyan content is low. Brown exists as a color perception only in the presence of a brighter color contrast.[16] Yellow, orange, red, or rose objects are still perceived as such if the general illumination level is low, despite reflecting the same amount of red or orange light as a brown object would in normal lighting conditions.
The colored disks appear to be brown and orange, but are actually an identical shade; their perceived color depends on the shade of grey they are surrounded by[17]
Rawumber and burnt umber are two of the oldest pigments used by humans. Umber is a brown clay, containing a large amount ofiron oxide and between five and twenty percentmanganese oxide, which give the color. Its shade varies from a greenish brown to a dark brown. It takes its name from the Italian region ofUmbria, where it was formerly mined. The principal source today is the island ofCyprus. Burnt umber is the same pigment which has been roasted (calcined), which turns the pigment darker and more reddish.[18]
Rawsienna and burnt sienna are also clay pigments rich in iron oxide, which were mined during theRenaissance around the city of Siena in Tuscany. Sienna contains less than five percent manganese. The natural sienna earth is a dark yellowochre color; when roasted it becomes a rich reddish brown called burnt sienna.[18]
Mummy brown was a pigment used in oil paints made from ground Egyptian mummies.[19]
Caput mortuum is a haematite iron oxide pigment, used in painting. The name is also used in reference to mummy brown.
Van Dyck brown, known in Europe as Cologne earth or Cassel earth, is another natural earth pigment, that was made up largely of decayed vegetal matter. It made a rich dark brown, and was widely used during the Renaissance to the 19th century It takes its name from the painterAnthony van Dyck, but it was used by many other artists before him. It was highly unstable and unreliable, so its use was abandoned by the 20th century, though the name continues to be used for modern synthetic pigments. The color of Van Dyck brown can be recreated by mixing ivory black with mauve or with Venetian red, or mixing cadmium red with cobalt blue.[20]
Mars brown. The names of the earth colors are still used, but very few modern pigments with these names actually contain natural earths; most of their ingredients today are synthetic.[18] Mars brown is typical of these new colors, made with synthetic iron oxide pigments. The new colors have a superior coloring power and opacity, but not the delicate hue as their namesakes.[18]
Walnuts have been used to make a brown dye since antiquity. The Roman writerOvid, in the first century BC described how theGauls used the juice of the hull or husk inside the shell of the walnut to make a brown dye for wool, or a reddish dye for their hair.[21]
Thechestnut tree has also been used since ancient times as a source brown dye. The bark of the tree, the leaves and the husk of the nuts have all been used to make dye. The leaves were used to make a beige or yellowish-brown dye, and in the Ottoman Empire the yellow-brown from chestnut leaves was combined with indigo blue to make shades of green.[22]
Iron oxide is the most common ingredient in brown pigments
Limonite is a form of yellowish iron ore. A clay of limonite rich in iron oxide is the source of raw sienna and burnt sienna.
With few exceptions, all mammals have brown or darkly-pigmented irises.[23] In humans, brown eyes result from a relatively high concentration ofmelanin in thestroma of the iris, which causes light of both shorter and longer wavelengths to be absorbed[24][25] and in many parts of the world, it is nearly the only iris color present.[26] Dark pigment of brown eyes is most common inEast Asia,Central Asia,Southeast Asia,South Asia,West Asia,Oceania,Africa,Americas, etc. as well as parts ofEastern Europe andSouthern Europe.[27] The majority of people in the world overall have dark brown eyes. Brown irises range from highly pigmented, dark brown (almost black) eyes, to very light, almost amber or hazel irises composed partially oflipochrome. of Light or medium-pigmented brown eyes are common inEurope,Afghanistan,Pakistan andNorthern India, as well as some parts of theMiddle East, and can also be found in populations inEast Asia andSoutheast Asia, but are proportionally rare. (Seeeye color).
Brown is the second most common color of human hair, after black. It is caused by higher levels of the natural dark pigmenteumelanin, and lower levels of the pale pigmentpheomelanin. Brown eumelanin is more common among Europeans, while black eumelanin is more often found in the hair on non-Europeans. A small amount of black eumelanin, in the absence of other pigments, results in grey hair. A small amount of brown eumelanin in the absence of other pigments results in blond hair.
Brunette comes frombrune, the French term for a woman with brown hair
Brown hair with highlights.Nadeeka Perera, a fashion model
A majority of people in the world have skin that is a shade of brown, from a very light honey brown or a golden brown, to a copper or bronze color, to a coffee color or a dark chocolate brown. Skin color and race are not the same; many people classified as "white" or "black" actually have skin that is a shade of brown. Brown skin is caused bymelanin, a natural pigment which is produced within the skin in cells calledmelanocytes. Skin pigmentation in humans evolved to primarily regulate the amount ofultraviolet radiation penetrating the skin, controlling its biochemical effects.[28]
Natural skin color can darken as a result oftanning due to exposure to sunlight. The leading theory is that skin color adapts to intense sunlight irradiation to provide partial protection against theultraviolet fraction that produces damage and thus mutations in theDNA of the skin cells.[29] There is a correlation between the geographic distribution of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) and the distribution of indigenous skin pigmentation around the world. Darker-skinned populations are found in the regions with the most ultraviolet, closer to the equator, while lighter skinned populations live closer to the poles, with less UVR, though immigration has changed these patterns.[30]
Whilewhiteand black are commonly used to describe racial groups,brown is rarely used, because it crosses all racial lines.InBrazil, the Portuguese wordpardo, which can mean different shades of brown, is used to refer to multiracial people. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) asks people to identify themselves asbranco (white),pardo (brown),negro (black), oramarelo (yellow). In 2008 43.8 percent of the population identified themselves as pardo.[31] (Seehuman skin color).
The thin top layer of the Earth's crust on land is largely made up ofsoil colored different shades of brown.[32] Good soil is composed of about forty-five percent minerals, twenty-five percent water, twenty-five percent air, and five percent organic material, living and dead. Half the color of soil comes from minerals it contains; soils containing iron turn yellowish or reddish as the iron oxidizes. Manganese, nitrogen and sulfur turn brownish or blackish as they decay naturally.
Rich and fertile soils tend to be darker in color; the deeper brown color of fertile soil comes from the decomposing of the organic matter. Dead leaves and roots become black or brown as they decay. Poorer soils are usually paler brown in color, and contain less water or organic matter.
Mollisols are the soil type found under grassland in theGreat Plains of America, thePampas in Argentina and the Russian Steppes. The soil is 60–80 centimeters deep and is rich in nutrients and organic matter.
Loess is a type of pale yellow or buff soil, which originated as wind-blown silt. It is very fertile, but is easily eroded by wind or water.
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation, whose decomposition is slowed by water. Despite its dark brown color, it is infertile, but is useful as a fuel.
A typical soil profile; dark-browntopsoils, rich with organic matter, above reddish-brown lower layers
A profile of layers ofMollisols, the soil type found in theGreat Plains of the U.S., thePampas in Argentina, and the Russian Steppes
A landscape ofloess soil inDatong,Shanxi, China. Loess originated as windblown silt. It is very fertile but erodes easily
A stack ofpeat cut from the Earth in the OuterHebrides,Scotland. Peat is partially decayed vegetative matter
A large number of mammals and predatory birds have a brown coloration. This sometimes changes seasonally, and sometimes remains the same year-round. This color is likely related tocamouflage, since the backdrop of some environments, such as the forest floor, is often brown, and especially in the spring and summertime when animals like thesnowshoe hare get brown fur. Most mammals aredichromats and so do not easily distinguish brown fur fromgreen grass.
Thebrown rat orNorwegian rat (Rattus norvegicus) is one of the best known and most commonrats.
Theermine (Mustela erminea) has a brown back in summer, or year-round in the southern reaches of its range.
Thebrown bear is found across Eurasia and North America
Thetawny owl. The colortawny takes its name from the old French wordtané, which means to tan leather. The same word is the root of suntan and the color tan
The fur of thesnowshoe hare is brown in the summer and turns white in winter, as a form of all-season naturalcamouflage
Camel is an effective color for camouflage in theSahara desert, and is also a popular color for blankets and winter overcoats
The solid waste excreted by human beings and many other animals is characteristically brown in color due to the presence ofbilirubin, a byproduct of destruction ofred blood cells.
Public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States showed brown to be the least popular color among respondents. It was the favorite color of only one percent of respondents, and the least favorite color of twenty percent.[33]
Brown has been a popular color for military uniforms since the late 18th century, largely because of its wide availability and low visibility. When theContinental Army was established in 1775 at the outbreak of theAmerican Revolution, the firstContinental Congress declared that the official uniform color would be brown, but this was not popular with many militias, whose officers were already wearing blue. In 1778 the Congress askedGeorge Washington to design a new uniform, and in 1779 Washington made the official color of all uniforms blue andbuff.[34]
In 1846 the Indian soldiers of theCorps of Guides in British India began to wear a yellowish shade of tan, which became known askhaki from theUrdu word for dust-colored, taken from an earlier Persian word for soil. The color made an excellent naturalcamouflage, and was adopted by theBritish Army for their Abyssian Campaign in 1867–1868, and later in theBoer War. It was adopted by the United States Army during theSpanish–American War (1896), and afterwards by theUnited States Navy andUnited States Marine Corps.
In the 1920s, brown became the uniform color of the Nazi Party in Germany. TheNazi paramilitary organization theSturmabteilung (SA) wore brown uniforms and were known as the brownshirts. The color brown was used to represent the Nazi vote on maps of electoral districts in Germany. If someone voted for the Nazis, they were said to be "voting brown". The national headquarters of the Nazi party, inMunich, was called theBrown House. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was called theBrown Revolution.[35] AtAdolf Hitler'sObersalzberg home, theBerghof, he slept in a "bed which was usually covered by a brown quilt embroidered with a hugeswastika.
The swastika also appeared on Hitler's brown satin pajamas, embroidered in black against a red background on the pocket. He had a matching brown silk robe."[36] Brown had originally been chosen as a Party color largely for convenience; large numbers of war-surplus brown uniforms from Germany's former colonial forces in Africa were cheaply available in the 1920s. It also suited the working-class and military images that the Party wished to convey.
From the 1930s onwards, the Party's brown uniforms were mass-produced by German clothing firms such asHugo Boss.[37][38]
The khaki uniforms of Indian soldiers in British India
Pullman Brown[39] is the color of theUnited Parcel Service (UPS) delivery company with their trademark brown trucks and uniforms; it was earlier the color ofPullman rail cars of thePullman Company, and was adopted by UPS both because brown is easy to keep clean, and due to favorable associations of luxury that Pullman brown evoked. UPS has filed twotrademarks on the color brown to prevent other shipping companies (and possibly other companies in general) from using the color if it creates "market confusion". In its advertising, UPS refers to itself as "Brown" ("What can Brown do for you?"). Labrecque, et al. (2012) have hypothesized that brown would be related to competence when used inadvertising, as the color is typically associated with reliability and support. However, they did not find a link between brown and competence.[40]
"To brown bag" a meal (to bring food from home to eat at work or school rather than patronizing an in-house cafeteria or a restaurant)
"To experience a brown out" (a partial loss of electricity, less severe than a blackout)
Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities whereredevelopment forinfill housing is complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations.[41]
'"Brown-nose" is a verb which means to beobsequious. It comes from the term for kissing the posterior of the boss in order to gain advancement.
Russet potatoes take their name from the color ofrusset, a coarse brown homespun cloth
Beige is a very light brown color, taking its name from the French word for the color of natural wool
Puce is defined in the United States and UK as a brownish-purple or purple-brown color.[43][44] In France, where it was invented, it is described as a dark reddish brown[45]
The colortaupe takes its name from the French word for the EuropeanMole
The colordrab is a dull light brown, which takes its name fromdrap, the old French word for undyed wool cloth.[46] It is best known for the olive-green shade calledolive drab, formerly worn by U.S. soldiers. Drab has come to mean dull, lifeless and monotonous
The clay soil nearSiena, Italy, is the color called rawsienna
^Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, (2002), Oxford University Press.
^Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language: "A combination of red, blue, and yellow."
^Oxford English Dictionaries On-Line: "Of a colour produced by mixing red, yellow, and blue, as of dark wood or rich soil"
^first attested inTheMetres of Boethius 26. 58, ca. AD 1000:stunede sio brune yd wid odre "One dark wave dashed against the other".
^Maerz and PaulA Dictionary of Color. New York:1930 McGraw-Hill, p. 191
^His hare [was] like to the nute brun, quen it for ripnes fals dun "his hair was like the nut brown, when for ripeness it falls down", Cursor M. 18833, ca. AD 1300, cited afterOED.
^[1] Omniglot- words for colors in different languages.
^Varichon,Couleurs – pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples. p. 254.
^Eva Heller,Psychologie de la couleur: Effets et symboliques. p. 219
^Isabellle Roelofs and Fabien Petillion,La Couleur explquée aux artistes, p. 148.
^Anne Varichon,Couleurs- pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples, pp. 264–265
^Anne Varichon,Couleurs- pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples, pp. 262–263
^Bradley, B. J.; Pedersen, A.; Mundy, N. I. (2009). "Blue eyes in lemurs and humans: Same phenotype, different genetic mechanism".American Journal of Physical Anthropology.139 (2):269–273.Bibcode:2009AJPA..139..269B.doi:10.1002/ajpa.21010.PMID19278018.
^Fox, Denis Llewellyn (1979). Biochromy: Natural Coloration of Living Things. University of California Press. p. 9.ISBN0-520-03699-9.
^Eiberg H, Mohr J (1996). "Assignment of genes coding for brown eye colour (BEY2) and brown hair colour (HCL3) on chromosome 15q".Eur. J. Hum. Genet.4 (4):237–41.doi:10.1159/000472205 (inactive 7 December 2025).PMID8875191.S2CID26700451.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of December 2025 (link)
^Webb, A.R. (2006). "Who, what, where, and when: influences on cutaneous vitamin D synthesis".Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.92 (1):17–25.doi:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2006.02.004.PMID16766240.
^Toland, JohnHitler: The Pictorial Documentary of his Life Garden City, New York:1978 Doubleday & Sons Chapter 5 "The Brown Revolution" Pages 42–60
^Infield, Glenn B.Eva and Adolf New York:1974--Grosset and Dunlap Page 142 (The author compiled this book by interviewingAlbert Speer and others who had been in Hitler's inner circle, such asSS men, secretaries, and housekeepers. The author also consulted the Musmanno Archives, a record of post-war interviews with over 200 people who had been close to Adolf Hitler or Eva Braun.)
^"They started out being Pullman brown," said Peter Fredo, U.P.S.'s vice president for advertising and public relations [...] The trucks have been brown since 1916 [...] "it was the epitome of luxury and class at the time.", inJacobs, Karrie (1998-04-20)."Learning to Love Brown".New York Times. Retrieved2008-04-02.
^Labrecque, Lauren I.; Milne, George R. (2012). "Exciting Red and Competent Blue: The Importance of Color in Marketing".Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.40 (5): 714.doi:10.1007/s11747-010-0245-y.S2CID167731928.(Murray and Deabler 1957; Schaie 1961; Wexner 1954). Likewise, brown is a color that is related to seriousness, (Clarke and Costall 2007), reliability, and support (Fraser and Banks 2004; Mahnke 1996; Wright 1988).
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![Puce is defined in the United States and UK as a brownish-purple or purple-brown color.[43][44] In France, where it was invented, it is described as a dark reddish brown[45]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aTriple_Alliance.png)
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