brown

Brown is a composite color. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is made by combining red, black, and yellow, or red, yellow, and blue. In the RGB color model used to project colors onto television screens and computer monitors, brown is made by combining red and green, in specific proportions. In painting, brown is generally made by adding black to orange.

The brown color is seen widely in nature, in wood, soil, human hair color, eye color and skin pigmentation. Brown is the color of dark wood or rich soil. According to public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States, brown is the least favorite color of the public; it is most often associated with plainness, the rustic, feces, and poverty. More positive associations include baking, warmth, wildlife and the autumn.

In the Middle Ages brown robes were worn by monks of the Franciscan order [修道会], as a sign of their humility and poverty. Each social class was expected to wear a color suitable to their station; and grey and brown were the colors of the poor.

In the late 20th century, brown became a common symbol in western culture for simple, inexpensive, natural and healthy. Bag lunches were carried in plain brown paper bags; packages were wrapped in plain brown paper. Brown bread and brown sugar were viewed as more natural and healthy than white bread and white sugar.

The colored disks appear to be brown and orange, but are actually an identical shade; their perceived color depends on the shade of grey they are surrounded by.

The majority of people in the world overall have dark brown eyes. Light or medium-pigmented brown eyes are common in Europe, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India, as well as some parts of the Middle East. Brown is the second most common color of human hair, after black. Brunette is the French term for a woman with brown (brun) hair. Chestnut color hair also has a reddish tint, but is less red and more brown than auburn hair.

A majority of people in the world have skin that is a shade of brown, from a very light honey brown or a golden brown, to a copper or bronze color, to a coffee color or a dark chocolate brown. Skin color and race are not the same; many people classified as "white" or "black" actually have skin that is a shade of brown. Brown skin is caused by melanin, a natural pigment which is produced within the skin in cells called melanocytes. 棕色皮肤是由黑色素引起的，黑色素是一种天然色素，在皮肤内的黑色素细胞中产生。Skin pigmentation in humans evolved to primarily regulate the amount of ultraviolet radiation penetrating the skin, controlling its biochemical effects.

Natural skin color can darken as a result of tanning due to exposure to sunlight. The leading theory is that skin color adapts to intense sunlight irradiation to provide partial protection against the ultraviolet fraction that produces damage and thus mutations in the DNA of the skin cells.

The thin top layer of the Earth's crust on land is largely made up of soil colored different shades of brown. Good soil is composed of about forty-five percent minerals, twenty-five percent water, twenty-five percent air, and five percent organic material, living and dead. Half the color of soil comes from minerals it contains; soils containing iron turn yellowish or reddish as the iron oxidizes. Manganese, nitrogen and sulfur turn brownish or blackish as they decay naturally.

Rich and fertile soils tend to be darker in color; the deeper brown color of fertile soil comes from the decomposing of the organic matter. Dead leaves and roots become black or brown as they decay. Poorer soils are usually paler brown in color, and contain less water or organic matter. A landscape of loess soil [黄土] in Datong, Shanxi, China. Loess originated as windblown silt. It is very fertile but erodes easily. 陕西是Shaanxi.

In 1846 the Indian soldiers of the Corps of Guides in British India began to wear a yellowish shade of tan, which became known as khaki from the Urdu word for dust-colored, taken from an earlier Persian word for soil. The color made an excellent natural camouflage, and was adopted by the British Army for their Abyssian Campaign in 1867–1868, and later in the Boer War. It was adopted by the United States Army during the Spanish–American War (1896), and afterwards by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps.

In the 1920s, brown became the uniform color of the Nazi Party in Germany. The Nazi paramilitary organization the Sturmabteilung (SA) wore brown uniforms and were known as the brownshirts. The color brown was used to represent the Nazi vote on maps of electoral districts in Germany. If someone voted for the Nazis, they were said to be "voting brown". The national headquarters of the Nazi party, in Munich, was called the Brown House. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was called the Brown Revolution. At Adolf Hitler's Obersalzberg home, the Berghof, he slept in a "bed which was usually covered by a brown quilt embroidered with a huge swastika.

The swastika also appeared on Hitler's brown satin pajamas, embroidered in black against a red background on the pocket. He had a matching brown silk robe."[35] Brown had originally been chosen as a Party color largely for convenience; large numbers of war-surplus brown uniforms from Germany's former colonial forces in Africa were cheaply available in the 1920s. It also suited the working-class and military images that the Party wished to convey.

From the 1930s onwards, the Party's brown uniforms were mass-produced by German clothing firms such as Hugo Boss.

Idioms and expressions:

• "To be brown as a berry" (to be deeply suntanned)
• "To brown bag" a meal (to bring food from home to eat at work or school rather than patronizing an in-house cafeteria or a restaurant)
• "To experience a brown out" (a partial loss of electricity, less severe than a blackout)
• Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where redevelopment for infill housing is complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations.
• '"Brown-nose" is a verb which means to be obsequious. It comes from the term for kissing the posterior of the boss in order to gain advancement.
• "In a brown study" (melancholy).

据说一位民主党的知名女士曾请求杜鲁门夫人劝她丈夫说话干净些，因为她刚听到杜鲁门指责某个政治家的发言“像一堆马粪”。杜鲁门夫人听后，毫不吃惊地说：“你不知道，我花了许多年时间，才把他的语言美化到这种地步。” Harry S. Truman, 美国第33任总统，电影《楚门的世界》：The Truman Show.

六级/考研单词: composite, compute, accord, unite, seldom, autumn, gray, heal, parcel, wrap, shade, copper, bronze, classify, evolve, regulate, radiate, penetrate, biochemistry, tan, intensive, fraction, thereby, crust, compose, organism, oxide, nitrogen, sulfur, decay, fertile, shallow, erode, corps, superb, navy, marine, electoral, nationwide, headquarters, revolve, embroider, silk, militant, convey, onward, clothe, idiom, berry, cafeteria, abandon, idle, complicate, verb