[f. BROWN a.]
1. intr. To become brown.
c. 1300. K. Alis., 3293. Whan note brounith in haselrys.
1859. Lever, Davenport Dunn, 26. ‘That delicious potato-cake that I see browning … before the fire.’
2. trans. To make brown; to roast brown; to give (by a chemical process) a dull brown luster to gun-barrels or other polished iron surfaces.
1570. Levins, Manip., 220. To Broune, obfuscare.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 133. Take off the skin and brown it.
1833. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, II. 107. The operation of browning a gun barrel.
1862. Thornbury, Turner, II. 319. The hot Italian sun had parched and browned him.
fig. 1798. Mary Wollstonecr., Posth. Wks., III. ix. 23. To give a freshness to days browned by care.
