Drab is a dull, light-

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 ...

color. It originally took its name from a fabric of the same color made of undyed, homespun wool. The word was first used in English in 1686. It probably originated from the

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...

word ''drap'', which meant cloth. The

normalized color coordinates Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Most commonly it refers to: * Normalization (sociology) or social normalization, the process through which ideas and behaviors that may fall outside o ...

for drab are identical to sand dune, mode beige and bistre brown, which were first recorded as color names in English, respectively, in 1925, 1928, and 1930. The word gradually came to mean dull, lifeless, or monotonous.

Drab (cloth)

Drab was a term used for cloths with specific colors such as dull browns, yellowish or gray. The Drab of heavy woolen was produced in

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

, England. It was a thick, sturdy structure used for overcoating.

In military uniforms

Several shades of drab have been used for military uniforms, including the above-mentioned light-

color. The greenish shades of drab, known as

olive drab Olive is a dark yellowish-green color, like that of unripe or green olives. As a color word in the English language, it appears in late Middle English. Shaded toward gray, it becomes olive drab. Variations Olivine Olivine is the typic ...

, were used as the colors of the U.S. Army uniforms and equipment during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

References

External links

{{shades of brown Shades of brown Woven fabrics