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

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

Brown

The color brown is displayed on the right.

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 AD 1000.

Pale brown

Displayed at right is the color pale brown.

Dark brown

Displayed at right is the color dark brown.

Brown in culture

Animal Rights

• The Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Edwardian England from 1903 until 1910.

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 dwarfs, which are intermediate in mass between a gas giant planet and a star.

Business

• Pullman Brown is the color of the United Parcel Service (UPS) delivery company with their trademark brown trucks and uniforms. UPS has filed two trademarks on the color brown to prevent other shipping companies (and possibly other companies in general) from using the color if it creates "market confusion." In its advertising, UPS refers to itself as "Brown" ("What can Brown do for you?").

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

Computing

• Ubuntu is well known for its default brown color scheme. The exact shades have changed from release to release, with a general trend towards lighter colors and 'shiny' graphics.

Cooking

• Browning is a process to remove excess fat from meat by heating, as under a broiler or in a frying pan, until it turns brown.
• Browning is also used to describe a range of chemical changes to food, desirable and undesirable. Examples of browning reactions include caramelization and the Maillard reaction (both generally desirable) and the process that leads to the undesirable browning of the flesh of cut apples, pears, potatos, and the like.