bruin

From Middle Dutch bruun (“brown”) via William Caxton's 1485 translation of a Dutch version of the legend of Reynard the Fox. Bruin is the bear, named for his brown color. Doublet of brown.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbɹuːɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːɪn
• Homophone: brewin'

bruin (plural bruins)

1. A folk name for a bear, especially the brown bear, Ursus arctos.
   • 1989, Elias Lönnrot, translated by Keith Bosley, The Kalevala, section XVII:

     The mother sought the one gone / astray, for the lost she longs: / she ran great swamps as a wolf / trod the wilds as a bruin / waters as an otter roamed […].

• oud bruin

• Bruni, Burin, Rubin, burin, rub in, rubin

From Dutch bruin.

• Audio:

  (file)

bruin (attributive bruin or (of people alternatively) bruine, comparative bruiner, superlative bruinste)

1. brown
2. coloured, of mixed-race and/or Southeast Asian stock

• IPA^(key): /brœy̯n/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bruin
• Rhymes: -œy̯n

From Middle Dutch bruun, from Old Dutch *brūn, from Proto-West Germanic *brūn, from Proto-Germanic *brūnaz.

bruin (comparative bruiner, superlative bruinst)

1. brown

• Afrikaans: bruin
• Negerhollands: bruun, brin, bryen
• → Papiamentu: brùin, brein, bruin
• → Sranan Tongo: broin

From the adjective bruin.

bruin n (uncountable)

1. the color brown

   Het bruin van de stam contrasteerde fel met het groen van de bladeren.

   The brown color of the trunk contrasted sharply with the green color of the leaves.

bruin c (uncountable)

1. (slang) heroin

   Mijn god, zit ie aan de bruin? ― My god, is he on heroin?

The expression aan de bruin zijn is used for the addiction to heroin only, not for individual shots.

From Dutch bruin.

bruin

1. brown