Brunette

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /bɹuˈnɛt/

Definitions

1. A person with dark brown hair color
2. A term used to describe an individual with dark brown hair, often associated with specific cultural and aesthetic characteristics
3. This designation refers to someone possessing deep brown hair shades, which may vary in tone and intensity

Etymology: French "brunette" is the feminine form of "brunet," a diminutive of "brun," meaning "brown." Its ancestry runs back through Frankish "brūn" and Proto-Germanic "brūnaz," which means the word is a Germanic borrowing that French then made its own. Brown itself is the root, and the French suffixes added a sense of smallness and gentleness, so a brunette was originally a "little brown" woman. English took the word from French, where it passed through Old French forms ending in "-ette." The term came to English as a borrowing from that French feminine, and it was used to describe a woman with dark brown hair, in contrast to the fair-haired ideal that dominated many European aesthetics. This word is a doublet of "burnet," a plant name that came into English along a different path from the same French ancestor, so the two words share a common source but took different routes into the language.

Synonyms: dark-haired, brown-haired

Antonyms: blonde, redhead