The term brown comes from the Old English brún, referring to a dusky or dark shade of colour. The word for brown in other languages often comes from food and drink. For example in Japanese the word for brown means ‘colour of tea’.
According to multiple public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States, brown is the general public’s least favourite colour. ’Drab’, a shade of brown which originally took its name from undyed, homespun wool of the same colour, has even come to mean dull and boring in modern English.
Brown is most strongly associated with nature but can also suggest reliability, security, stability, honesty, wholesomeness, history and simplicity.
