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145 Things That Are Brown

John Spacey, updated on October 18, 2024

Brown is a pervasive color in nature that is the color of earth, rocks and wood. It is an extremely common color for land animals and birds. Brown is also one of the most common colors for foods including staples such as bread, coffee and raw sugar. Brown is a composite color that often results from mixes of color involving red, orange or yellow. The following are common brown things.

All (145)

Animals (48)

Foods & Beverages (55)

Materials (21)

Other (21)

Aardvarks	Almonds
Armadillos	Bamboo
Baseball Gloves	Baskets
Beans	Beavers
Beer	Beetles
Birds	Biscuits
Bison	Boa Constrictors / Snakes
Brandy / Whiskey	Brazil Nuts
Bread	Bricks
Bronze	Brown Bags
Brown Bats	Brown Bears
Brown Diamonds	Brown Rice
Buzzards	Caffe Mocha
Caiman	Cappuccino
Capybara	Caramel
Cardboard	Cashmere
Chai	Champagne
Chestnuts	Chickens
Chickpeas	Chicory
Chocolate	Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cinnamon	Clay
Coconuts	Cocoons
Coffee	Cola
Common Buckeye / Butterflies	Copper
Cork	Cotton
Cougars	Cows
Coyotes	Croissants
Dates	Deer
Dogs	Eagles
Earth / Soil	Elk
European Mink	Eyes
Feathers	Firewood
Flax Seeds	Fortune Cookies
Foxes	Frogs
Furniture	Ginger
Ginger Ale	Giraffes
Gravy	Hair
Hazelnuts	Honey
Horses	Hot Chocolate
Impala	Insects
Kangaroos	Kiwi Fruit
Lattes	Leather
Longan Fruit	Lotus Root
Maple Sugar	Maple Syrup
Mice & Rats	Monkeys
Moose	Mules / Donkeys
Mushrooms	Muskrats
Otters	Owls
Paper	Pastries
Peanut Butter	Pecans
Pennies	Pine Cones
Potatoes	Pottery
Raccoons	Raw Sugar / Brown Sugar
Rocks	Roobos Tea
Root Beer	Roots
Rust	Salamanders
Sand	Sandstone
Sea Lions	Seeds
Sheep	Shoes
Smoky Quartz	Steak / Cooked Meat
Stones	Straw / Hay
Tarantula / Spiders	Taro
Taupe	Tea
Teddy Bears	Three-Toed Sloths
Tiger's Eye	Toads
Toast	Toasted Marshmallow
Toffee	Tortoises
Tree Bark	Trees
Turtles	Umber
Walnuts	Wheat
Whole Wheat Pasta	Winter / Autumn Leaves
Wolfs	Wolverines
Wood

Interesting Facts About Brown

Optically, brown is essentially a reddish grey.

Animals are very often brown due to the pigment melanin that provides color to skin, fur and feathers. This has other functions such as UV protection.

Plants are often brown due to a pigment known as tannin that plays a role in deterring pests and fungus.

Why is Brown a Relatively Unpopular Color?

The color brown is often noted as an unpopular color whereby it is rare for people to choose brown as their favorite color. Specifically, only about 2% of people name brown as their favorite.

Brown is associated with broadly popular things such as wood, coffee and chocolate. Brown things tend to have an earthy, organic, classic, solid, rich, luxurious or comfortable feel. As such, it's perhaps strange it's so unpopular. There are several possible explanations for this:

Vegetation tends to turn brown as it decays. People may inherently fear decay and thus brown can have an uncomfortable feel.
Brown is viewed as a neutral color that doesn't stand out.
Dirt such as soil is often brown. This may be a negative association.
Brown may actually feel too organic such that it is rarely used to symbolize cultural things such as the flags of nations.
Historically, many fabric and materials were naturally brown but other colors, particularly blue were quite rare. As such, high status institutions used expensive blue pigments such as ultramarine as a symbol creating positive perceptions of this color. Blue is the most common favorite color.

Of these possible reasons, the neutral color explanation stands out. It is relatively rare for people to name other neutral colors such as white or grey as favorites. It should be noted here that brown is indeed a popular color for many things such as shoes, hair coloring and furnishings.