Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A state of deep thought.
Wiktionary
- n. idiomatic, dated A melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought; a moody daydream.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. a state of mental abstraction or serious reverie.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a state of deep absorption or thoughtfulness
Etymologies
- From obsolete brown ("gloomy") and study. (Wiktionary)
- brown, gloomy + study, mental state. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“How long he would have sat will never be known, if his brown study had not been ended by Rivington's entrance.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘brown study’.
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
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I Am A Starfish. I Speak With Paint.
List title totally stolen from she. Right, the stock entry for this list should be a two-word phrase where one of the words denotes a colour; even better if the expression has some metaphoric value...
black dog, tangerine dream, orange roughy, blue moon, blackguard, white house, purple rain, grey nurse, green thumb, yellow fever, sacre bleu, palo verde and 159 more...
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brown phrases/words
how brown is used
brown ale, brown algae, brown ant, brown-back, brown bag, brown-bag, brown-bagger, brown-bagging, brown-bag lunch, brown baker, brown-barrelled, brown bastard and 119 more...
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plans for the weekend
No new unlisted words/phrases, please! Only list existing ones.
ruddy with booze ..., I go out horking...., attend pubs that ..., harvest kidneys, bowling balls, chandeliers, lampshade, Saran Wrap, croodle, kite, anal thermometer,..., plinth and 44 more...
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Idioms and Phrases
hack someone off, scrape the bottom..., haul over the coals, rake over the coals, have a thin time, down one's alley, up one's alley, shoot the bull, bite the bullet, up the creek, cudgel one' brains, plain as a pikestaff and 156 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Rose varieties
Rosarians have names for thousands of varieties of roses.
holy toledo, gourmet popcorn, apple jack, barbara bush, burning desire, hot tamale, tradescant, sweet surrender, sweet chariot, pinocchio, oyster pearl, olympiad and 309 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Gil Blas
Interesting words and usages from Smollett's 1749 translation of Lesage's L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane
reck, durance, rhodomontade, hangdog, trap, lustre, pin, boggle, dandle, birthday suit, colic, gripes and 238 more...
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chromatic phrases
blue movie, brown study, purple prose, rosy scenario, golden mean, eminence grise, white nights, bronze age, silver bullet, orange juice, black death, technicolor yawn and 188 more...
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Colour my Wordie!
Words and short phrases with colour names in them
blackguard, black box, black market, blue moon, blue-collar worker, true-blue, blue-blooded, pink slip, tickled pink, pink elephant, white elephant, white gold and 81 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for brown study.
yarb I found him over head and ears in a brown study. What is the matter, my friend? said I, seemingly there is something upon your mind.
- Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 5 ch. 1 Sep 19, 2008