The brown and orange disks of color are objectively identical, in identical gray surrounds, in this image; their perceived color categories depend on what white they are compared to.

Brown, when used as a general term, is a color which is a dark yellow, orange, or red, of low luminance relative to lighter or white colored objects.^[1]

Some pale orange and yellow colors of lower saturation are called light browns.

Brown

Brown
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#964B00
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(150, 75, 0)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(30°, 100%, 59%)
Source		BF2S Color Guide
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

The color brown is displayed at right. Another name for this color (rarely used) is dark orange.

Brown paint can be produced by adding black or their complementary colors to rose, red, orange, or yellow colored paint. As a color of low intensity it is a tertiary color in the original technical sense: 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.

The first recorded use of brown as a color name in English was in 1000 AD.^[2]

Variations of brown

Pale brown

Pale Brown
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#987654
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(152, 118, 84)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(30°, 45%, 60%)
Source		BF2S Color Guide
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Displayed at right is the color pale brown.

Dark brown

Dark Brown
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#654321
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(101, 67, 33)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(30°, 67%, 40%)
Source		BF2S Color Guide
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Displayed at right is the color dark brown.

Brown in culture

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 dwarves, which are intermediate in mass between a gas giant planet and a star. ^[3]

Business

• Pullman Brown^{[citation needed]} is the color of the United Parcel Service (UPS) delivery company with their trademark brown trucks and uniforms. Brown is a trademark of UPS. In its advertising, UPS refers to itself as "Brown" ("What can Brown do for you?").

City Planning

• Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where redevelopment for infill housing is complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. ^[4]

Cooking

• Browning (partial cooking) is a process to remove excess fat from meat by heating, as under a broiler or in a frying pan, until it turns brown.

Food

• Beef, Venison, Duck, and Lamb are all meats that are colored brown.
• Brown sugar is a favorite topping for porridge served with milk, a favorite breakfast food.
• Chocolate is often associated with the color brown.

Games

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

Ethnography

• Brown is sometimes used to refer to brown people in general or sometimes more specifically to the darker skinned Indo-Aryan and Dravidian of South Asia^[5] or to Latin Americans.
• The term brown or bronze may be used by mestizo Hispanics to describe themselves, and by extension these terms may sometimes be applied to all Hispanics, even those of purely European ancestry.
• Austronesians in the 19th Century and 20th Century were often referred to as the Malayan race or brown race.

Holidays

• The colors brown and orange represent the United States and Canadian holiday of Thanksgiving.

Movies

• Four shades of brown ^[6] is the title of a Swedish film from 2004

Music

• 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).

Nature

• Many soils are brown.
• Many kinds of wood and the bark of many trees are brown.
• Feces are usually brown.
• 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.

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. ^[7]

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. 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, in Munich, was called the Brown House. 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 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." ^[8]

Sexuality

• In the bandana code of the gay leather subculture, wearing a brown bandana means that one is into the fetish of copraphilia. ^[9]

Sports

• Brown is often used as a color of athletic jerseys and logos. Perhaps the most notable are the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. The team got its name from its founder and long-time coach, Paul Brown. The St. Louis Browns are a former Major League Baseball team, now known as the Baltimore Orioles. For about 25 years, the San Diego Padres had brown as a primary team color.

Brown pigments

• Bistre
• Sienna (burnt and raw)
• Umber (burnt and raw)

References

See also

• List of colors

External links

• All About Brown