brownie

brownie

See also: Brownie

English

chocolate brownies (sense 1)

mythical brownies (sense 2)

Etymology

From brown +‎ -ie (diminutive suffix).

Pronunciation

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɹaʊni/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊni
• Hyphenation: brown‧ie

Noun

brownie (plural brownies)

1. (cooking) A small square piece of rich cake, usually made with chocolate.
   • 2000, Lori Gottlieb, Stick Figure: a diary of my former self, page 173,

     […] if she ever found out she was dying, she'd just eat brownies all day and night until the very end.

   • 2005, Aaron Lazare, On Apology, unnumbered page,

     On a Saturday afternoon, my wife bought her favorite treat for dessert that evening, a gourmet, nut-filled brownie.

   • 2005, Steve Otto, Memoirs of a Drugged-Up, Sex-Crazed Yippie, page 228,

     After cooking the brownies until we could smell the pot, we each ate a large brownie.

2. (folklore) A mythical creature, a helpful elf who would secretly do people's housework for them.
   • 1828, Thomas Keightley, Fairy Mythology, volume II, page 169:

     Thus, offer Brownie a piece of bread, a cup of drink, or a new coat and hood, and he flouted at it, and perhaps, in his huff, quitted the place for ever ; but leave a nice bowl of cream, and some fresh honeycomb, in a snug private corner, and they soon disappeared, though Brownie, it was to be supposed, never knew any thing of them.

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, H.L. Brækstad, transl., Folk and Fairy Tales, page 5:

     "Oh, auntie, do you know what Stine says?" cried a little brown-eyed beauty; "she says I shall go with her into the hayloft to-night and give the brownie his Christmas porridge."

   • 1908, Dinah Craik, The Adventures of A Brownie.
   • 1985, The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 1, page 636,

     Stories were told of a brownie riding horseback to fetch the midwife at childbirth or helping his master to win at checkers.

   • 2004, Justin Hocking, Jeffrey Knutson, Jared Jacang Maher (editors), Life and Limb: Skateboarders Write from the Deep End, page 37,

     There are no brownies in my house, though. I know because there's always a pile of dishes in the sink.

3. (paganism) A household spirit or revered ancestor.
4. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the Eurasian genus Miletus.
5. (informal) A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
6. (informal) The widow rockfish (Sebastes entomelas), a fish in the family Sebastidae.
   • 2007, R. Quentin Grafton, Harry W. Nelson, Bruce Turris, “How to Resolve the Class II Common Property Problem? The Case of British Columbia's Multi-Species Groundfish Trawl Fishery”, in Trond Bjørndal, Daniel V. Gordon, Ragnar Arnason, U. Rashid Sumaila, editors, Advances in Fisheries Economics: Festschrift in Honour of Professor Gordon R. Munro, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, →ISBN, page 61:

     Depending upon the species, fishers may harvest along the ocean floor for many rockfish and other groundfish, while hake, pollock, and some rockfish species (i.e. greenies and brownies) are targeted with mid-water trawls.

   Coordinate term: greenie

7. A girl in the first level of Girl Guides (US: Girl Scouts).
8. (Australia, New Zealand, colloquial) A tall, long-necked beer bottle, made from brown coloured glass.
9. (ethnic slur, offensive) A person of Arab, Indian or Hispanic descent. Sometimes used for a Native American or Pacific Islander.

Derived terms

• Alice B. Toklas brownie
• brownie point
• chocolate brownie
• county brownie
• funny brownie
• hash brownie
• pot brownie

 

Descendants

• → French: brownie
• → German: Brownie

Translations

small rich cake

Arabic: جنيَة سمراء صغيرَة‎ Azerbaijani: damdabaca Chinese: Mandarin: 布朗尼 (bùlǎngní) Czech: šotek n Finnish: mokkapala (fi) French: brownie (fr) f German: Brownie m Hungarian: brownie (hu) Icelandic: súkkulaðikökum Irish: donnóg f Japanese: ブラウニー (buraunī) Polish: brownie (pl) n Portuguese: brownie (pt) m Russian: бра́уни (ru) m or n (bráuni) Spanish: please add this translation if you can Vietnamese: ma tốt Welsh: browni m

helpful elf

Chinese: Mandarin: 棕仙 (zōngxiān) Danish: nisse Finnish: kotitonttu German: Heinzelmännchen (de) n Irish: gruagach m Japanese: ブラウニー (buraunī) Norwegian: nisse (no) m or n Russian: домово́й (ru) m (domovój), бра́уни (ru) m or f (bráuni) Scottish Gaelic: ùraisg m Spanish: please add this translation if you can Swedish: tomte (sv) Welsh: bwbach (cy) m

paganism: household spirit or revered ancestor

butterfly of the genus Miletus

Salmo trutta — see brown trout

fish Sebastes entomelas

Finnish: surukorusimppu

girl on the first level of girl scouts

Finnish: sudenpentu (fi)

Further reading

• brownie on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Chocolate brownie on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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French

Etymology

Borrowed from English brownie.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bʁo.ni/, (Quebec) /bʁaw.ni/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

brownie m (plural brownies)

1. brownie (type of small chocolate cake)

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Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

Borrowed from English brownie.

Noun

brownie m (definite singular brownien, indefinite plural browniar, definite plural browniane)

1. brownie (type of small chocolate cake)

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Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English brownie.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbraw.ɲi/
• Rhymes: -awɲi
• Syllabification: brow‧nie

Noun

brownie n (indeclinable)

1. brownie (small rich cake)

Further reading

• brownie in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• brownie in Polish dictionaries at PWN

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Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English brownie.

Noun

brownie m (plural brownies)

1. brownie (type of small chocolate cake)

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Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English brownie.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɾauni/ [ˈbɾau̯.ni]
• Rhymes: -auni

Noun

brownie m (plural brownies)

1. brownie

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Derived terms

• brownie rubia (“blondie”)