Brown facts for kids

A brown dog on a brown couch with brown pillows.

Brown is a common human hair color

Brown is a color. There are many ways to make the color brown - it can be a mixture of orange and black, of red, blue, and yellow, of red and green, of orange and blue, of purple and yellow, or of orange and black paint.

Brown is the color of:

• Some chocolate
• Wood
• Toast
• Some hair
• Coffee
• Tree bark

Tones of brown color comparison chart

Related pages

• List of colors

Images for kids

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  Painting of a dun horse on the wall of Lascaux Cave in France.

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  Tomb of Userhet, 1300 BC. Brown was widely used in Ancient Egypt to represent skin color.

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  A tan terracotta background on a Greek amphora with the figures of Hercules and Apollo. (about 720 BC).

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  Leonardo da Vinci used sepia ink, from cuttlefish, for his writing and drawing.

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  Jan van Eyck, Portrait de Baudoin de Lannoy. (1435)

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  Self-portrait of Rembrandt. The older Rembrandt became the more brown he used in his paintings.

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  Anthony van Dyck, like Rembrandt, was attached to the pigment called Cassel earth or Cologne earth; it became known as Van Dyck brown.

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  Words of the Devil, by Paul Gauguin (1892).

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  Uniform of the Hitler Youth movement in the 1930s.

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  Iron oxide is the most common ingredient in brown pigments.

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  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.

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  Natural or raw umber pigment is clay rich in iron oxide and manganese.

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  Burnt sienna pigment, from the region around Siena in Tuscany

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  A dark brown iris is most common in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

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  A light brown iris is most common in North Africa, Eastern Europe, the Americas and West Asia.

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  Brunette is the French term for a woman with brown (brun) hair.

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  Nadeeka Perera, a fashion model from Sri Lanka

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  Auburn hair is a reddish brown. This is actress Susan Sarandon.

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  Chestnut color hair also has a reddish tint, but is less red and more brown than auburn hair. This is German singer Yvonne Catterfeld.

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  An elderly woman from Gambia

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  A man from Egypt

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  A woman from Brazil

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  A man from Tibet

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  A young woman from Peru

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  A typical soil profile; dark-brown topsoils, rich with organic matter, above reddish-brown lower layers.

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  A profile of layers of Mollisols, the soil type found in the Great Plains of the U.S., the Pampas in Argentina, and the Russian Steppes.

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  A landscape of loess soil in Datong, Shanxi, China. Loess originated as windblown silt. It is very fertile but erodes easily.

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  A stack of peat cut from the Earth in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Peat is partially decayed vegetative matter.

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  The brown bear is found across Eurasia and North America.

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  The tawny owl. The color tawny takes its name from the old French word tané, which means to tan leather. The same word is the root of suntan and the color tan.

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  The fur of the snowshoe hare is brown in the summer and turns white in winter, as a form of all-season natural camouflage.

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  Camel is an effective color for camouflage in the Sahara desert, and is also a popular color for blankets and winter overcoats.

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  The khaki uniforms of Indian soldiers in British India.

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  General Douglas MacArthur in Khaki on August 2, 1945.

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  Chief petty officers of the U.S. Navy in their khaki service uniforms.

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  A Pullman rail car, in traditional brown.

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  A UPS truck in Pullman brown

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  The Sahara Desert around the Kufra Oasis, Libya, seen from space

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  Chocolate. A sachertorte in a Vienna cafe.

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  Espresso-roasted coffee beans.

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  Oak barrels in a winery in Chianti, Italy.

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  People dressed as 1st World War soldiers as part of the commemoration of the battle of the Somme. The word khaki means "earth" in the Persian language.

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  A dun-colored horse. Donn is the word for brown in the Scottish and Irish Gaelic languages.

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  Pieces of natural amber

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  Bodybuilders who have been spray tanned.

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  Pieces of caramel.

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  A sepia tone photograph (1895)

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  A monk of the Franciscan order. Plain brown wool symbolizes humility.

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  An ochre quarry in France

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  Layers of soil in Ireland. Dark brown soil usually contains a high amount of decayed organic matter.

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  Different sorts of chestnuts

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  Russet potatoes. They take their name from the color of russet, a coarse brown homespun cloth.

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  Beige is a very light brown color, taking its name from the French word for the color of natural wool.

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  Puce is defined in the United States and UK as a brownish-purple or purple-brown color. In France, where it was invented, it is described as a dark reddish brown.

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  The color taupe takes its name from the French word for this animal, the European Mole.

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  The color drab is a dull light brown, which takes its name from drap, the old French word for undyed wool cloth. It is best known for the olive-green shade called olive drab, formerly worn by U.S. soldiers. Drab has come to mean dull, lifeless and monotonous.

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  The clay soil near Siena, Italy, is the color called raw sienna.

See also

In Spanish: Marrón para niños