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auburn

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A moderate reddish brown to brown.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Originally, whitish or flaxen-colored; now, reddish-brown: generally applied to hair.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Flaxen-colored.
  • adjective Reddish brown.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A dark reddish-brown colour, often used to describe hair colour.
  • adjective Of a reddish-brown colour.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (of hair) colored a moderate reddish-brown

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French aborne, blond, from Latin alburnus, whitish, from albus, white; see albho- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Early Modern English auburn "brown, reddish brown" from Middle English aubourne, abron, abroune, abrune "light brown, yellowish brown, blond", alteration (due to conflation with Middle English brun "brown") of earlier auborne "yellowish-white, flaxen" from Old French auborne, alborne "blond, flaxen, off-white" from Medieval Latin alburnus "whitish" from Latin albus "white". More at albino, brown

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Examples

  • Being able to indulge in the insignia of wealth, even without being the good fellow he is, Ernest finds it is of little significance that his hair is "what fond mothers term auburn," while Dawn's triumphs were assured from the outset.

    Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Miles Franklin 1916

  • I also noticed the comment about nwtmint-in auburn washington, I live close to it, and also have never invested in silver, never had money but have some now, just found nwtmint website yesterday and was thinking ... what would anyone recommend?

    False U.S. dollar hope Canadian silver bug/Green Assassin Brigade 2008

  • Victorian ladies possessing the colouring falsely called "auburn" -- but clouded their excessive verdure to neutrality by semi-transparent over-draperies of black.

    The Best British Short Stories of 1922 John Cournos 1915

  • Not what I'd call auburn but then it may look different under studio lights and on camera.

    Archive 2009-10-01 2009

  • Not what I'd call auburn but then it may look different under studio lights and on camera.

    Day 3: Filming at Doune Castle 2009

  • Her eyes were black apparently, though really brown with orange streaks, contrasting with her hair, of the ruddy tint so prized by the Romans, called auburn in England, a color which often appears in the offspring of persons of jet black hair, like that of Monsieur and Madame

    A Marriage Contract 2007

  • A bright hue mingled with red and white gives the colour called auburn (Greek).

    Timaeus 2006

  • It was a splendid figure of a lass, tall and vigorous, with the sort of hair that in polite circles is called auburn, and that flaming colour in the cheeks which is Nature's recompense to people who live where it rains all the time.

    King Coal : a Novel Upton Sinclair 1923

  • A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil.

    Anne of Avonlea 1909

  • A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in

    Anne of Avonlea 1908

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