Brown is a color term, denoting a range of composite colors produced by a mixture of orange, red, rose, or yellow with black. The term is from Old English brún, in origin for any dusky or dark shade of color.
The Common Germanic adjective *brûnoz, *brûnâ meant both dark colors and a glistening or shining quality, whence burnish. The current meaning develops in Middle English from the 14th century.

The adjective is applied to naturally occurring colors, referring to animal fur, human hair, human skin pigmentation (tans), partially charred or carbonized fiber as in toasted bread and other foods, peat, withered leaves, etc.

In terms of the visible spectrum, "brown" refers to high wavelength hues, yellow, orange, or red, in combination with low luminance or saturation.
Since brown may cover a wide range of the visible spectrum, composite adjectives such as red brown, yellowish brown, dark brown or light brown (amber)
As a color of low intensity, brown is a tertiary color: a mix of the three subtractive primary colors is brown if the cyan content is low. Brown exists as a color perception only in the presence of a brighter color contrast: 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.

Brown in nature

Animals

• The brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America.

• 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 to camouflage, since the backdrop of some environments, such as the forest floor, is often brown, and especially in the spring and summertime when animals like the Snowshoe Hare get brown fur.

Brown in human culture

Animal Rightsthumb|220px|right|A brown dog in a brown world.

• The Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Edwardian England from 1903 until 1910.

Astronomy

• The planet Jupiter has orange, red, and brown coloration in its clouds.

• Astronomers have recently detected the existence of the long theorized formerly hypothetical but now known to be actual astronomical objects called brown dwarfs, which are intermediate in mass between a gas giant planet and a star.

Business

• Pullman Brown is the color of the United Parcel Service (UPS) delivery company with their trademark brown trucks and uniforms. UPS has filed two trademarks 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?").

thumb|150px|right|The brown color scheme of Ubuntu (Linux)
City Planning

• Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where redevelopment for infill housing is complicated by environmental contaminations.

Computing

• Ubuntu is well known for its default brown color scheme. The exact shades have changed from release to release, with a general trend towards lighter colors and 'shiny' graphics.

Cooking

• Browning removes excess fat from meat by heating, as under a broiler or in a frying pan, until it turns brown.

• Browning describes chemical changes to food, desirable and undesirable. Examples of browning reactions include caramelization and the Maillard reaction (generally desirable) and the process that leads to the undesirable browning of the flesh of cut apples, pears, potatos, and the like.

Ethnography

• Brown refers to brown people in general or to darker skinned Indo-Aryan and Dravidian of South Asia.

• Brown or bronze is used by mestizo or Amerindian Hispanics to describe themselves. The use of the term bronze to describe La Raza derives from the book La Raza Cosmica by Jose Vasconcelos.

• Despite being referred to as black, the Black people of Sub-Saharan Africa actually average a sepia tone in complexion.

• Austronesians in the 19th century and 20th century were referred to as the Malayan race or brown race. (A term for Austronesians today is Maritime Asian.)

• In her 1942 Glossary of Harlem Slang, Zora Neale Hurston placed "high yaller" at the beginning of the entry for her African American colorscale: "high yaller, yaller, high brown, vaseline brown, seal brown, low brown, dark brown".

Film

• Four shades of brown is the title of a Swedish film from 2004

Food

• Chocolate is often associated with the color brown.

• Brownies are a favorite dessert.

• Boston brown bread is a popular bread made with molasses that is often sold in cans.

• In Japanese language, brown is described as , which means "tea color", although green tea is most popular in Japan.

Games

• In the billiard game of Snooker the 4-point snooker ball is brown.

Music

• Little Brown Jug is a drinking song written in 1869 by Joseph Winner.

• Brown Sugar is one of the most popular songs by the Rolling Stones (Album: Sticky Fingers).

• The song "Brown Eyed Girl" is by the artist Van Morrison (Album: Blowin' Your Mind!).

• The song "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" is by the artist Primus (Album: Tales from the Punchbowl).

• Golden Brown is a popular song about Heroin by The Stranglers.

Parapsychology

• It is said that people who have brown auras are often unethical businessmen who are in business purely for the sake of greed, or people who are just generally greedy and avaricious.

Politics

• In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, the German Nazi paramilitary organization the Sturmabteilung (SA) wore brown uniforms and were known as the brownshirts. It was often said of members of the SA that they were like a beefsteak--"brown on the outside, and red on the inside"--because many of them were former Communists. Brown represented the Nazi vote on maps of electoral districts in Germany. A vote for Nazis was "voting brown". The national headquarters of the Nazi party, in Munich, was called the Brown House. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was called the Brown Revolution. At Adolf Hitler's Obersalzberg home, the Berghof, he slept in a "bed which was usually covered by a brown quilt embroidered with a huge swastika. The swastika appeared on Hitler's brown satin pajamas, embroidered in black against a red background on the pocket."

Surnamesthumb|150px|right|The brown earth during a drought

• "Brown" is a common surname, as are the equivalent words in other Indo-European languages.

Sports

• Brown is sometimes used as a team color or name, as in the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, which got its name from its founder and long-time coach, Paul Brown, but also uses brown as a team color. The St. Louis Browns are a former Major League Baseball team, now known as the Baltimore Orioles; they do not use brown as a team color. For about 25 years, the San Diego Padres had brown as a primary team color.

Television

• In the TV show Firefly, a browncoat refers to a person who fought against the Anglo-Sino Alliance.