feuillemorte

feuille-morte (alternative)
feuillemort (alternative)
foliomort (alternative)

From French feuille-morte, feuille morte (“a dead leaf”).

Of the color of dead or dying leaves: dull yellowish or orangish brown.


broon

en-noun

broon (countable and uncountable, plural broons)

Conserved from Middle English broun, from Old English brūn as opposed to the Standard English pronunciation.


broon

en-adj

broon (comparative more broon, superlative most broon)

more broon (comparative)
most broon (superlative)

(Geordie, Scotland) Of the colour brown.


burnt orange

burnt orange (comparative more burnt orange, superlative most burnt orange)

more burnt orange (comparative)
most burnt orange (superlative)

As for her beauty look, the Jennifer’s Body star had dyed her long tresses a burnt-orange shade, and styled them slightly curled at the ends and down across her shoulders. She also repped a bubblegum-pink manicure with an abstract black design.

2023 May 19, Chelsey Sanchez, “Megan Fox Makes Her Red-Carpet Comeback in a Body-Sculpting Sheer Gown”, in Harper's Bazaar:


coppery

coppery (comparative more coppery, superlative most coppery)

more coppery (comparative)
most coppery (superlative)

an especially coppery grade of brass

Containing copper, especially if abundantly.


filemot

An anglicized form of feuillemorte / French feuille-morte.

The walls were panelled; each panel was comparted like a modern office desk, and each compartment crowded with labelled folios all filemot with age and use.

1880, Lewis Wallace, Ben-Hur, Harper & Brothers:


filemot

Synonym of feuillemorte: the color of a dead or faded leaf: dull brown or yellowish brown.


wenge

A reddish shade of brown associated with this wood.


bronzy

bronzy (comparative bronzier, superlative bronziest)

bronzier (comparative)
bronziest (superlative)

Her bronzy tan spoke of hours spent in the sun.

Her skin had a bronzy polish under the pale dusting powder.

1963, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Faber and Faber:


piceous

piceous (comparative more piceous, superlative most piceous)

more piceous (comparative)
most piceous (superlative)

From Latin piceus (“like pitch; pitch-black”) + -ous (suffix forming adjectives denoting possession or presence of a quality). Piceus is derived from pix (“pitch, tar”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peyH- (“fat; milk”)) + -eus (suffix forming adjectives indicating the sources of attributes). The English word is cognate with Italian piceo (“like pitch; of a dark brown colour”), Spanish piceo (“like pitch; of a dark brown colour”).

cog

Piciroſtris. Oblong, black: ſilvery-ſilky: ſnout half way and legs piceous.

1806, Charles Linné [i.e., Carl Linnaeus], William Turton, A General System of Nature, through the Three Grand Kingdoms of Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals, […] In Seven Volumes, volume II (Animal Kingdom), part I (Insects), London: Printed [by Dewick & Clarke] for Lackington, Allen, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 215:

The colour of the upper part is a mixture of yellowish-white and piceous disposed in dots, exactly resembling mosaic work, […]

1828 June 17, Thomas Bell, “VII. Description of a New Species of Agama, Brought from the Columbia River by Mr. [David] Douglass.”, in The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, volume XVI, London: Printed by Richard Taylor, […]; and by Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, […]; and William Wood, […], published 1833, →OCLC, pages 105–106:

Abdomen with shining cinereous tomentum, and with five lines of piceous spots; […] Tibiæ piceous towards the tips; tarsi piceous.

1868 February 6, Andrew Murray, “On an Undescribed Light-giving Coleopterous Larva (Provisionally Named Astraptor illuminator)”, in The Journal of the Linnean Society. Zoology, volume X, London: Sold at the [Linnean] Society [of London]’s apartments, […]; and by Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, and Williams and Norgate, published 1870, →OCLC, paragraph 16, page 90:

Front and middle legs yellow, coxae black behind, femora piceous posteriorly; […]

1940 September, R. A. Cushman, A Review of the Parasitic Wasps of the Ichneumonid Genus Exenterus Hartig (United States Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication; no. 354), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 12:

Agabus elongatus […] Legs rufous; metafemur piceous.

1995, Anders N. Nilsson, Mogens Holmen, “Subfamily Colymbetinae”, in N. P. Kristensen, editor, The Aquatic Adephagia (Coleoptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. II. Dytiscidae (Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica), volume 32, Leiden, New York, N.Y.: E[vert] J[an] Leiden, →ISBN, →ISSN, paragraph 95, page 110:

From the year of its establishment, darkness seemed to have found a home in Beet College. Dark pink for the brick buildings, dark green for the doorjambs and the benches, dark iron for the hinges, dark stone for Nathaniel's Tomb; darkness in the piceous roots of trees that broke through the earth like bones through skin.

2008, Roger Rosenblatt, chapter 1, in Beet: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Ecco Press, →ISBN:

Gyrophaenia uteana Casey […] [H]ead piceous, pronotum dark rufo-testaceous to piceous; elytra reddish-brown with sutural region and posterior angles piceous, abdomen yellowish- or reddish-brown, apical portion often darker, piceous; […]

2018, Jan Klimaszewski et al., “Tribe Homalotini Heer, 1839”, in Aleocharine Rove Beetles of Eastern Canada (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Aleocharinae): A Glimpse of Megadiversity, Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISBN, paragraph 162, page 378:

(chiefly entomology) Resembling pitch in colour; a very dark brown.


Mars brown

Presumably from the colour of the planet Mars.


olivaster

en-adj

olivaster (comparative more olivaster, superlative most olivaster)

more olivaster (comparative)
most olivaster (superlative)

From French olivastre (attested by 1575; compare modern French olivâtre). For more, see olive, -aster.

Of colour, they are rather black than olivaster and that their arms and legs are chained with manilios and armlets of silver, brass, ivory and the like

1634, T[homas] H[erbert], A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia, […], London: […] William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, →OCLC:

(archaic, uncommon) Of the color of the olive; tawny.


alhenna

Borrowed from Arabic الحِنَّاء (al-ḥinnāʔ), preserving the Arabic article اَل (al-).

Lawsonia inermis
Lawsonia inermis#Translingual


dishwater blond

dishwater blond (comparative more dishwater blond, superlative most dishwater blond)

more dishwater blond (comparative)
most dishwater blond (superlative)
dishwater blonde (alternative)

She had a pert, dishwater blond hairdo, kind of like a Doris Day cut.

2006, Pierce Scranton, Death on the Learning Curve, Elite Books, published 2006, →ISBN, page 129:

Of a dark blond color bordering on light brown.


dishwater blond

en-noun

dishwater blond (plural dishwater blonds)

dishwater blonds (plural)
dishwater blonde (alternative)

"Dishwater blond is just as attractive as it sounds. Get highlights."

2006, Christina Dodd, Trouble in High Heels, Signet, published 2006, →ISBN, page 21:

A dark shade of blond, bordering on light brown.

Russ tipped the magazine slightly to reduce the glare from the lamp. The dishwater blond in the picture smiled at him, Russ thought, in just the right way.

2003, David M. Pierce, Elf Child, The Hatworth Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 1:


almagra

almagra (usually uncountable, plural almagras)

Borrowed from Spanish almagra (more commonly almagre), from Arabic الْمُغْرَة (al-muḡra, “red clay or earth”).


philomot

One of them was blue, another yellow, and another philomot

1712 January 14 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “THURSDAY, January 3, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 265; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:


spadiceous

en-adj

spadiceous (comparative more spadiceous, superlative most spadiceous)

more spadiceous (comparative)
most spadiceous (superlative)

From Latin spadix, spadicis (“a date-brown or nut-brown color”). See spadix.

Of those five [horns] which Scaliger beheld, though one spadiceous, or of a light red, and two inclining to red, yet was there not any of this complexion among them.

1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:

Of a bright clear brown or chestnut colour.


gold ochre

en-noun

gold ochre (countable and uncountable, plural gold ochres)

gold ochres (plural)
gold ocher (alternative)

/ɡəʊld ˈəʊkə(ɹ)/

A dark yellowish color, a yellowish shade of ochre or olive.


claybank

claybank (countable and uncountable, plural claybanks)

I took Señorita Anabela for a walk in the lemon grove while Fergus, disfiguring himself with an ugly frown, was waltzing with the claybank girl.

1909 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “‘Next to Reading Matter’”, in Roads of Destiny, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 82:


castaneous

en-adj

castaneous (comparative more castaneous, superlative most castaneous)

more castaneous (comparative)
most castaneous (superlative)

From the Latin castanea (“a chestnut, a chestnut tree”) + -ous (“full, full of”).

uder

Elytra piceous, gradually shaded into a castaneous margin, irregularly and minutely punctured, covered with ochraceous pubescence.

Having the colour of a chestnut; chestnut-coloured.


mummy brown

en-noun

mummy brown (usually uncountable, plural mummy browns)

Mummy brown.—The bituminous substance found in and enveloping Egyptian mummies; it may be considered partly animal and partly bituminous matter.

[1842, G[eorge William] Francis, “Application of Chemistry”, in Chemical Experiments; Illustrating the Theory, Practice, and Application of the Science of Chemistry, […], London: G. Berger, […], →OCLC, paragraph 2075, page 240, column 2:

[I]nasmuch as from their very nature or origin the various specimens of Mummy-Brown must differ more or less, there is not the least reliance to be placed upon them: one is in the dark as to his materials, and can predict nothing with even ordinary certainty as to the result of their employment. It is therefore that we ourselves, though quite enamored of experiment, have never yet felt the least desire to essay this pigment, seeing nothing to be gained by smearing our canvas with a part perhaps of the wife of Potiphar, that might not be as easily secured by materials less frail and of more sober character.

1849, [Laughton Osborn], “Summary of the Generally-received Opinions with Regard to the Solidity of the Various Colors Now in Use for Oilpainting”, in Handbook of Young Artists and Amateurs in Oilpainting: […] By an American Artist, New York, N.Y., London: John Wiley, […], →OCLC, footnote, page 57:

Mummy brown comes from the catacombs of Egypt. It is the liquid bitumen that was used in embalming, chemically changed by time and mixture with animal remains. Objections to this pigment are sometimes raised on rather novel grounds, though whether they are the result of sentimental reverence or disgust is open to conjecture.

1875, “Color: The Origin of Pigments and Their Chemical Action”, in The Antefix Papers. Papers on Art Educational Subjects, Read at the Weekly Meetings of the Massachusetts Art Teachers’ Association, by Members and Others Connected with the Massachusetts Normal Art School, Boston, Mass.: Printed for private circulation, →OCLC, page 39:

And once he [Edward Burne-Jones] descended in broad daylight with a tube of ‘Mummy Brown’ in his hand, saying that he had discovered it was made of dead Pharaohs and we must bury it accordingly. So we all went out and helped—according to the rites of Mizraim and Memphis, I hope—and—to this day I could drive a spade within a foot of where that tube lies.

1937, Rudyard Kipling, “A Very Young Person: 1865–1878”, in Something of Myself: For My Friends Known and Unknown, London: Macmillan and Co., […], →OCLC, page 13:

(painting, historical) A brown pigment originally prepared from the ground-up remains of Egyptian animal or human mummies mixed with bitumen, etc.

brun momie

brown pigment originally prepared from ground-up remains of Egyptian mummies, etc.


desert sand

A very light and very weakly saturated reddish yellow (orange or brown) colour that resembles the color of sand in a desert


œil-de-perdrix

Borrowed from French œil-de-perdrix (literally “eye of a partridge”).

bor

an œil-de-perdrix pattern

(art) Characterized by, or decorated with, small round spots or rings.


nut-brown

en-adj

nut-brown (comparative more nut-brown, superlative most nut-brown)

more nut-brown (comparative)
most nut-brown (superlative)

From Middle English nute-brun, equivalent to nut + brown.

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, (1883), Chapter 1


bronde

en-noun

bronde (countable and uncountable, plural brondes)

Blend of brunette + blonde or brown + blonde, popularised from circa 2010.

What happens when beach blonde meets a rich brunette? You get a 'bronde'. A colour that is somewhere between the two extremes, bronde brings in the best of both worlds.

2017, "Hair Colouring", The Times of Oman 100, Summer 2016, page 33

(uncountable) A hair colour intermediate between brown and blond.


badious

From Latin badius (“reddish brown, chestnut colored”), with the suffix adapted to -ous.

uder

Head castaneous; thorax latericious; abdomen badious; legs ochraceous.

1898, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 26, Linnean Society of London:

Abdomen subovate and short; basal segment apically badious with postpetiole punctate, […]

1919, Zoological Society of London, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London:

Its branching type and vaguely badious colour suggest a close relationship with B. spiralifera, which shares the same habitat.

1977, Societas, Opera Botanica, Issues 41-45:


dust-colored

en-adj

dust-colored (comparative more dust-colored, superlative most dust-colored)

more dust-colored (comparative)
most dust-colored (superlative)
dust-coloured (alternative)
dustcolored (alternative)
dustcoloured (alternative)

In the weak eyes of Venus, and in every reddish dust-colored hair in his shock of hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion.

1865, Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend:


Pullman brown

Named after Pullman, a rail company which used the colour on many of its cars.

UPS has used the color for its trucks since 1916, when it was called Pullman brown. The reason the company chose brown is "that it was the epitome of luxury at the time," a former UPS executive told The New York Times in 1998.

2012 September 29, Aleksi Tzatzev, “10 Colors That Might Get You Sued”, in Business Insider:

Home insulation company Owens Corning launched the "Think Pink" campaign to protect its unique pink hue, setting a precedent for Cadbury's deep purple chocolate wrappers, UPS's Pullman brown logos, Tiffany & Co.'s robin egg blue jewelry packaging and Christian Louboutin's red shoe soles.

2017 November 6, Marissa Miller, “How colors change the way we think, feel and consume”, in CNN:

A shade of brown originally used on Pullman cars and later by UPS.


shit-brown

en-noun

shit-brown (countable and uncountable, plural shit-browns)

But being the right shade of khaki or shit-brown is not enough.

1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 60:

(vulgar, informal) A dark brown colour, as of excrement.


sepian

en-adjective

sepian (comparative more sepian, superlative most sepian)

more sepian (comparative)
most sepian (superlative)

Nineteenth century sepian musicals included Sam T. Jack's "Creoles" -1890...

1941, Who is who in Music, Berghan Publishing Company, page 37:

(US, dated) Belonging to or pertaining to black Americans or African Americans, who typically have dark pigmentation of the skin.


sepian

Chicago Defender columnists forewarned viewers that despite [The World, the Flesh and the Devil's] marketing as the "first interracial romance between male Sepian and non-Sepian female star," the only personal contact between Belafonte and Stevens occurs during the haircut scene and when she takes his hand.

2014 [1959], Judith E. Smith, Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical, University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 187:

(US, sometimes capitalized, dated) A black American or African American.


dirty blonde

en-adj

dirty blonde (comparative more dirty blonde, superlative most dirty blonde)

more dirty blonde (comparative)
most dirty blonde (superlative)
dirty blond (alternative)

Of a dark blonde color bordering on light brown.


dirty blonde

en-noun

dirty blonde (countable and uncountable, plural dirty blondes)

dirty blondes (plural)
dirty blond (alternative)

A dark shade of blonde, bordering on light brown.


mousy brown

en-adj

mousy brown (comparative more mousy brown, superlative most mousy brown)

more mousy brown (comparative)
most mousy brown (superlative)

(of hair) Of a light brunette color with cool, greyish tones.


kobicha

For quotations using this term, see Citations:kobicha.

A dark, orangish or grayish brown color historically used in Japan.


autumn orange

en-noun

autumn orange (countable and uncountable, plural autumn oranges)

An orange color reminiscent of fallen leaves in autumn.