Shades of brown can be produced by combining red, yellow, and black pigments, or by a combination of
orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
and
black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
—illustrated in the
color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...
box. The
RGB color model
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additiv ...
, that generates all colors on computer and television screens, makes
brown
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...
by combining red and green light at different intensities. Brown color names are often imprecise, and some shades, such as
beige
Beige is variously described as a pale sandy fawn color, a grayish tan, a light-grayish yellowish brown, or a pale to grayish yellow. It takes its name from French, where the word originally meant natural wool that has been neither bleached no ...
, can refer to lighter rather than darker shades of yellow and red. Such colors are less
saturated
Saturation, saturated, unsaturation or unsaturated may refer to:
Chemistry
* Saturation, a property of organic compounds referring to carbon-carbon bonds
** Saturated and unsaturated compounds
**Degree of unsaturation
** Saturated fat or fatty ac ...
than colors perceived to be
orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
. Browns are usually described as light or dark, reddish, yellowish, or gray-brown. There are no standardized names for shades of brown; the same shade may have different names on different color lists, and sometimes one name (such as beige or puce) can refer to several very different colors. The X11 color list of
web colors
Web colors are colors used in displaying web pages on the World Wide Web, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Colors may be specified as an RGB triplet or in hexadecimal format (a ''hex triplet'') or according to their c ...
has seventeen different shades of brown, but the complete list of browns is much longer.
Brown colors are typically desaturated shades of reds, oranges, and yellows which are created on computer and television screens using the RGB color model and in printing with the
CMYK color model
The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...
. Browns can also be created by mixing two complementary colors from the
RYB color model
RYB (an abbreviation of red–yellow–blue) is a subtractive color model used in art and applied design in which red, yellow, and blue pigments are considered primary colors. Under traditional color theory, (which some artists see as the ...
(combining all three primary colors). In theory, such combinations should produce black, but produce brown because most commercially available blue pigments tend to be comparatively weaker; the stronger red and yellow colors prevail, thus creating brown tones. Displayed here are some common brown shades.
Red-brown (web color "brown")
The
web color
Web colors are colors used in Web design, displaying web pages on the World Wide Web, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Colors may be specified as an RGB color model, RGB triplet or in hexadecimal format (a ''hex triple ...
called "brown" is displayed as shown.
The historical and traditional name for this color is red-brown.
The color shown above at the top right at the head of this article (color #964B00) is the color normally and traditionally regarded as ''brown''—a medium dark orange. Its h (
hue
In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called Color appearance model#Color appearance parameters, color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a Stimulus (physiology ...
) code is 30, which signifies a shade of orange. The color to the immediate right (color #A52A2A) that was chosen as the web color "brown"—a medium dark red—is the color traditionally called ''red-brown''. That this color is a shade of red and not orange can be easily ascertained by inspecting its h (hue) code, which is 0, signifying a shade of red.
The first recorded use of ''red-brown'' as a color name in English was in 1682.
Brown (RYB)
Displayed at right is the color that is called brown in the
RYB color model
RYB (an abbreviation of red–yellow–blue) is a subtractive color model used in art and applied design in which red, yellow, and blue pigments are considered primary colors. Under traditional color theory, (which some artists see as the ...
. It is an equal mix of red, yellow and blue.
Additional variations of brown
Rosy brown
Displayed here is the web color rosy brown. At a hue of 359, it is classified as a red-brown.
The color name ''rosy brown'' first came into use in 1987, when this color was formulated as one of the X11 colors, which in the early 1990s became known as the X11 web colors.
Burnt umber
Burnt umber is made by heating raw umber, which dehydrates the iron oxides and changes them partially to the more reddish
hematite
Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...
. It is used for both oil and water color paint. At a hue of 9, it is classified as a red-brown.
The first recorded use of ''burnt umber'' as a color name in English was in 1650.
Wenge
Wenge refers to the distinctive color of the dark-colored wood that is the product of ''
Millettia laurentii
''Millettia laurentii'' is a legume tree from Africa and native to the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. The species is listed as "endangered" in the IUCN Red List, principally due ...
'', a
legume tree from Africa. At a hue of 9, it is classified as a red-brown.
Chestnut
Displayed at right is the color chestnut. At a hue of 10, it is classified as a red-brown.
Maroon
Displayed at right is the web color called ''maroon'' in HTML/CSS and it is a brownish crimson color that takes its name from the French word marron, or chestnut.
"Marron" is also one of the French translations for "brown".
Smokey topaz
Displayed at right is the color smokey topaz. At a hue of exactly 15, it is classified as a red-brown or orange-brown. It can also be called a vermilion-brown.
This color was formulated by
Crayola
Crayola LLC, formerly the Binney & Smith Company, is an American manufacturing company specializing in art supplies. It is known for its brand ''Crayola'' and best known for its crayons. The company is headquartered in Forks Township, Pennsylva ...
in 1994 as one of the colors in the Gem Tones set.
Desert sand
The color desert sand is displayed at right. At a hue of 19, it is classified as an orange-brown.
It may be publicly regarded as a deep shade of beige. It is a pale tint of a color called ''desert''.
The color name "desert" was first used in 1920.
Dark brown
Dark brown is a dark tone of color brown. At a hue of 19, it is classified as a black-brown.
Beaver
Beaver is a shade of brown representative of the color of a
beaver
Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...
. At a hue of 22, it is classified as an orange-brown.
The first recorded use of ''beaver'' as a color name in English was in 1705.
The color "beaver" was formulated as one of the
Crayola colors in 1998.
Etymologically, it's believed that the words "brown" and "beaver" ultimately stem from the same
root word
A root (or root word) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the prima ...
.
Cocoa brown
Displayed at right is the color cocoa brown. At a hue of 25, it is classified as an orange-brown.
Russet
Russet is a dark brown color with a reddish-orange tinge. At a hue of 26, it is classified as an orange-brown.
The first recorded use of ''russet'' as a color name in English was in 1562.
The name of the color derives from
russet, a coarse cloth made of wool and dyed with
woad
''Isatis tinctoria'', also called woad (), dyer's woad, or glastum, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae (the mustard family) with a documented history of use as a blue dye and medicinal plant. Its genus name, Isatis, derives from ...
and
madder
''Rubia'' is the type genus of the Rubiaceae family of flowering plants, which also contains coffee. It contains around 80 species of perennial scrambling or climbing herbs and subshrubs native to the Old World. The genus and its best-known spe ...
to give it a subdued gray or reddish-brown shade. By the statute of 1363, poor English people were required to wear russet.
Russet, a color of
fall
Autumn, also known as fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southe ...
, is often associated with sorrow or grave seriousness. Anticipating a lifetime of regret,
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's character Biron says: "Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd / In russet yeas and honest kersey noes." (''
Love's Labour's Lost
''Love's Labour's Lost'' is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Elizabeth I of England, Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and ...
'', Act V, Scene 1)
Buff
Buff is a pale
yellow
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the R ...
-
brown
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...
color that got its name from the color of buffed
leather
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...
. At a hue of 28, it is classified as an orange-brown.
According to the
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
, buff as a descriptor of a color was first used in the ''
London Gazette
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
'' of 1686, describing a uniform to be "A Red Coat with a Buff-colour'd lining".
Kobicha (Brown-nose)
The color
kobicha (brown-nose) is displayed at right. At a hue of 28, it is classified as an orange-brown.
It is one of the
Japanese traditional colors that has been in use since 660 AD in the form of various
dyes
A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...
used in designing
kimono
The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...
.
The name ''kobicha'' comes from the
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
for the color of a type of kelp tea, but the word was often used as a synonym for a form of flattery in a curious parallel with the English usage ''brown nosing''.
Sandy brown
Sandy brown is a pale shade of brown. ''Sandy brown'' is one of the
web color
Web colors are colors used in Web design, displaying web pages on the World Wide Web, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Colors may be specified as an RGB color model, RGB triplet or in hexadecimal format (a ''hex triple ...
s. At a hue of 28, it is classified as an orange-brown.
As its name suggests, it is a shade of brown which is similar to the color of some
sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...
s.
The color name ''sandy brown'' first came into use in 1987, when this color was formulated as one of the
X11 colors, which in the early 1990s became known as the
X11 web colors.
Peru
Displayed at right is the web color Peru. With a hue of 30, it is classified as an orange-brown.
This color was originally called ''Peruvian brown'' with the first recorded use in 1924 of ''Peruvian brown'' as a color name in English.
The color name was changed to ''peru'' in 1987, when this color was formulated as one of the X11 colors, which in the early 1990s became known as the X11 web colors.
Taupe
The color taupe is a representation of the average color of the fur of the French
mole
Mole (or Molé) may refer to:
Animals
* Mole (animal) or "true mole", mammals in the family Talpidae, found in Eurasia and North America
* Golden moles, southern African mammals in the family Chrysochloridae, similar to but unrelated to Talpida ...
. At a hue of 30, it is classified as an orange-brown.
The color displayed at right matches the color sample called ''taupe'' referenced below in the 1930 book ''A Dictionary of Color''.
The first use of "taupe" as a color name in English was in the early 19th century (exact year is not known).
Walnut brown
Walnut brown is a dark brown color; a representation of the color made from walnut hulls. At a hue of 30, it is classified as an orange-brown.
Chocolate
Displayed at right is the color chocolate. At a hue of 31, it is classified as an orange-brown.
Raw umber
Displayed at the right is one version of the color raw umber. At a hue of 33, it is classified as an orange-brown.
Wood brown
Wood brown is a color that resembles
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
. At a hue of 33, it is classified as an orange-brown.
The first recorded use of ''wood brown'' as a color name in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
was in
Robert Ridgway
Robert Ridgway (July 2, 1850 – March 25, 1929) was an American ornithologist specializing in systematics. He was appointed in 1880 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to be the first full-time curator of bird ...
's 1886 book ''Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, Compendium of Useful Knowledge for Ornithologists''.
[Ridgway (1886), pp. 36, 54, 117; Color Sample of Wood Brown: Plate III fig. 19] Ridgway further refined the details of its color coordinates in his 1912 publication ''Color Standards and Color Nomenclature''.
[Ridgway (1912), p. 40; Color Sample of Wood Brown: Plate XL]
The
normalized color coordinates for wood brown are identical to
fallow
Fallow is a farming technique in which arable land is left without sowing for one or more vegetative cycles. The goal of fallowing is to allow the land to recover and store organic matter while retaining moisture and disrupting pest life cycl ...
,
camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
and
desert
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...
, which were first recorded as color names in English in 1000, 1916, and 1920, respectively.
Tan
Tan is a pale tone of brown. At a hue of 34, it is classified as an orange-brown.
The name is derived from tannum (
oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...
bark) used in the
tanning
Tanning may refer to:
*Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather
*Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin
**Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun
**Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...
of
leather
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...
.
The first recorded use of ''tan'' as a color name in English was in the year 1590.
Khaki
Displayed at right is the color khaki.
This is the
web color
Web colors are colors used in Web design, displaying web pages on the World Wide Web, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Colors may be specified as an RGB color model, RGB triplet or in hexadecimal format (a ''hex triple ...
called ''khaki'' in
HTML/CSS. At a hue of 37, it is classified as an orange-brown.
The color shown at right matches the color designated as ''khaki'' in the 1930 book ''A Dictionary of Color'', the standard for color nomenclature before the introduction of computers.
The first recorded use of ''khaki'' as a color name in English was in 1848.
[Maerz & Paul, p. 197; Color Sample of Khaki: p. 49 Plate 13 Color Sample J7]
Beige
Beige is a light tan color representative of the color of unbleached
wool
Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool.
As ...
. At a hue of 60, it is classified as a yellow-brown.
Manhattan
Manhattan is a pale light grayish brown color.
See also
*
Pantone 448 C
Pantone 448 C is a colour in the Pantone colour system. Described as a drab dark brown and informally dubbed the "ugliest colour in the world", it was selected in 2012 as the colour for plain tobacco and cigarette packaging in Australia, after ...
*
Lists of colors
These are the lists of colors;
* List of colors: A–F
* List of colors: G–M
* List of colors: N–Z
* List of colors (compact)
* List of colors by shade
* List of color palettes
* List of Crayola crayon colors
* List of RAL colors
* List ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
Citations
{{Color shades