And if any of your nation attempte once to ſtoppe me in my iorney now towards Calais,[…] I in my defence ſhall colour and make red yourtawny ground with the effuſion of chriſtian bloud:[…]
Come, vve muſt haue you turne Fiddler againe, ſlaue, 'get a Baſe Violin at your backe, and march in aTavvnie Coate, vvith one ſleeue, to Gooſe-faire, and then you'll knovve vs;[…]
1725, [Daniel Defoe], “Part I”, inA New Voyage Round the World, by a Course Never Sailed before.[…], London:[…] A[rthur] Bettesworth,[…]; and W. Mears,[…],→OCLC,page155:
To the Queen he gave[…] a ſmall Box full of large Needles; then he gave her ſome courſe brovvn Thread, and ſhovv'd her hovv to thred the Needle and ſovv any Thing together vvith the Thread; all vvhich ſhe admired exceedingly, and call'd herTavvny Maids of Honour about her, that they might learn alſo.
[T]he head waiter inquired with respectful solicitude whether that port, being a light andtawny wine, was suited to his taste, or whether he would wish to try a fruity port with greater body.
There were thetawny rocks, like lions couchant, defying the ocean, whose waves incessantly dashed against and scoured them with vast quantities of gravel.
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; / And out o' thetawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon, / When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor, / A red-coat troop came marching— / Marching—marching— / King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
Dio Cassius, writing more than one hundred years after the event, describedBoudicca as 'very tall, in appearance most terrifying … the glance of her eye most fierce, her voice harsh … a great mass of thetawniest hair fell to her hips'.
2019,Roger Tory Peterson, Michael DiGiorgio, Paul Lehman, Peter Pyle, Larry Rosche, “Owls and Nightjars”, inPeterson Field Guide to Birds of North America (Peterson Field Guides), 2nd edition, Boston, Mass.:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,→ISBN,page230:
ANTILLEAN NIGHTHAWKChordeiles gundlachii[…] Somewhattawnier and smaller than Common Nighthawk, but readily distinguished from it only by call.
The countenance alone bespoke the years and the cares of John M‘Whirter. The deep wrinkled brow—the cheek plaited, andtawnied in the sun and the frosts of the north—[…]
In his drowse it all turned gleaming and mixing in him, his whole life, like the river gleaming taut between the trees. And everything that had ever happened to himtawnied over by the voluptuous light of the last fall, and his mouth watered for it all.
Despise not my discolour'd look: / Thistawny from the sun I took.
The spelling has been modernized.
1705, “Part I. Of Silk Dying.”, in[anonymous], transl.,The Whole Art of Dying.[…], London:[…] William Pearson, and sold byJ[ohn] Nutt,[…],→OCLC,page14:
From the follovving Dye are Compoſed the beſtTavvnies, Grey and Crimſon Goat Colours.[…] The Silk muſt be put in vvhen the Suds are cold, for the colder the Suds, the blevver the Violet Colour, vvhich muſt alvvays be blevver than theTavvnies.
1720, Tho[mas] Page, Junior, “The Materials of Painting, Describing the Chief Colours to be Used;[…]”, inThe Art of Painting in Its Rudiment, Progress, and Perfection:[…], Norwich, Norfolk:[…],[…],→OCLC,pages48–49:
And thus by varying the Colours you ſhall produce all ſorts of mixtures: So black and vvhite variouſly mixed make a vaſt Company of deep and light Greys, Bleus and Yellovvs, many Greens; Red and Yellovv OrangeTavvnies,[…] the more the Red the deeper the OrangeTavvnies, and ſo forth; and thus muſt they in your VVork be ſhaded and heightened vvith Colours of their ovvn Affinity:[…]
[T]he Herehaught [herald] muſt have a ſinguler reſpect to the face of him that ſhould haue the Armes, vvhere he ſhal vvel perceiue in vvhat ſeaſõ of the yere, his ovvn complexion vvill ſerue him to do beſt ſeruice in:[…] If in Somer, either a Hound or Salamandra, or ſome part of them, of the colour Bruske, vvhich is betvveene Geules andtavvney.
1632,John Guillim, “Sect[ion] I. Chap[ter] III.”, inA Display of Heraldrie:[…], 2nd edition, London:[…] Richard Badger for Ralph Mab,→OCLC,page21:
Tavvny (ſaithLeigh [i.e.,Gerard Legh]) is aColour of vvorſhip, and of ſomeHeralds it is calledBruske, and is moſt commonly borne ofFrench Gentlemen, but very fevv doe beare it inEngland. InBlazon it is knovvne by the name ofTenne. It is (ſaith he) the ſureſt colour that is (of ſo bright a hevv being compounded) for it is made of tvvobright Colours, vvhich areRed andYellovv:[…]
1765, Mark Anthony Porny[pseudonym; Antoine Pyron du Martre], “Of the Essential and Integral Parts of Arms. Article II. Of the Tinctures.”, inThe Elements of Heraldry,[…], London:[…]J[ohn] Newbery,[…],→OCLC, section I (Of Colours),page17:
Tenne, vvhich is thetavvny orOrange colour, is marked by diagonal lines dravvn from the Siniſter to the Dexter ſide of the Shield, traverſed by perpendicular lines from the Chief;[…]
The 5th edition,page 22, states “from the dexter to the ſinister ſide”.
Some heraldic writers extend the number of tinctures to seven, by the addition of sanguine or murrey, dark blood or mulberry-colour, andtenné,tawny, or orange-colour; while others who admit them into the catalogue declare them, at the same time, to bestainant, or disgraceful; but, as I have stated in my notice of Abatements (p. 171), it is very improbable any one would bear arms so degraded; and the strongest proof that no such opinion with respect to these two colours existed in the days of chivalry is, that the livery colours of the house of York were murrey and blue, and thattawny was apparently much affected by the retainers of the nobility and Church dignitaries.
Something of a light brown or brownish orange colour (particularly if it has the wordtawny in its name).
1629,John Parkinson, “Caryophyllus hortensus. Carnations and Gilloflowers.”, inParadisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris.[…], London:[…] Hvmfrey Lownes and Robert Yovng[…],→OCLC,pages311–312:
Iohn VVittie his great tavvny Gilloflovver is for forme of grovving, in leafe and flovver altogether like vnto the ordinarytavvny, the flovver onely, becauſe it is the faireſt and greateſt that any other hath nourſed vp, maketh the difference, as alſo that it is of a faire deepe ſcarlet colour. There are alſo diuers otherTavvnies, either lighter or ſadder, either leſſe or more double, that they cannot be numbered, and all riſing (as I ſaid before) from ſovving the ſeede of ſome of them:[…]
The Tawny Owl may easily be induced, under favourable conditions, to take up its quarters near the houses of men. The writer is familiar with a pair ofTawnies which have nested for many years in one of several covered-in boxes fitted up in the trees that overhang the shrubberies in the grounds.[…] There are otherTawnies in the woods and parks about, but this pair are the lords of their own district, for like all birds of prey they require a large area for their hunt for food.
[1847,James Orchard Halliwell, “TAWNY”, inA Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century.[…], volumes II (J–Z), London:John Russell Smith,[…],→OCLC,page854, column 1:
Tawny is the most versatile Port style. The besttawnies are good-quality wines that have faded to a pale garnet or brownish red color during long wood aging.[…] We consider 10- and 20-year-oldtawnies the best buys; the older ones aren't always worth the extra bucks.
2007,Lettie Teague, “Portugal”, inEducating Peter: How I Taught a Famous Movie Critic the Difference between Cabernet and Merlot or How Anyone Can Become an (Almost) Instant Wine Expert, New York, N.Y., London:Scribner,→ISBN,page110:
A ten-year-oldtawny is a good place to start with a tawny port novice, who might otherwise be put off by the oxidized flavors (i.e., more wood and earth notes than fruit) that come with a very oldtawny.
Afabric of a light brown to brownish orange colour.
1553, “The Seconde Chapitre. An Acte for the True Making of Woullen Clothes.”, inAnno III. & IIII. Edwardi Sexti. Actes Made in the Session of This Present Parlament, Holden vpon Prorogation at Westminster, the. IIII Daie of Nouembre, in the Third Yere of the Reigne of Our Most Dread Souuereine LordEdward the. VI[…], London:[…]Rychard Grafton, printer to the Kinges Maiestie,→OCLC,folio iiij, recto:
[N]o perſone, or perſones, occupiyng the ſeate ofdiẽg, ſhal die, or altre into colours, or cauſe to be died, or altred into colours, any wollen clothes, as broune blewes, pieukes,tawnies, or violettes, except the ſame wollẽ clothes be perfeictly boiled, greined or madered vpon the woade, & ſhot with good, and ſufficient corke, or orchal after a due, ſubſtancial, & ſufficient maner of workemanſhip, according to thauncient workmanſhip in time paſt vſed, vpõ peine for euery defalt to forfeite .xx. s̃.
1566 August 18 (Gregorian calendar),Arthur Edwards, “A Letter of M. Arthur Edwards, Written the 8. of August 1566. from the Towne of Shamakie in Media, to the Right Worshipfull the Gouernours, Consuls, Assistants, and Generalitie of the Companie of Rusia, &c. Shewing His Accesse vnto the Emperour of Persia,[…]”, inRichard Hakluyt,The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation,[…], London:[…] George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies toChristopher Barker,[…], published1589,→OCLC,page380:
You ſhall doe well to ſend ſuch ſorts [of clothes] as be liuely to the ſight, and ſome blackes for womens garments, with ſome Orenge colours andtawneis.
TheTavvnies among vvhom vve came, have VVatered our Soyl, vvith the Blood, of many Hundred of our Inhabitants.
1696,[Jacques-Joseph] Le Maire,A Voyage of the Sieur Le Maire to the Canary Islands, Cape-Verd, Senegal and Gamby, under Monsieur Dancourt, Director-General of the Royal African Company.[…], London:[…] F. Mills and W. Turner,[…],→OCLC,page47:
Senegal ſeparates theAzoaghes,Moors orTavvnies, from the realBlacks; ſo that on one ſide of the River are theMoors of a Tavvny Complexion, and the other is Inhabited by People that are perfectly Black.
Upon our arrival at Morocco, vve found the vvhole kingdom a ſcene of blood and confuſion. Fifty ſons of the emperor Muley-Iſhmael had each their adherents: this produced fifty civil vvars of blacks againſt blacks, oftavvnies againſttavvnies, and of mulattoes againſt mulattoes.
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, March 2022.
tawny (color) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia