Word.ws English Dictionary

brown bagging

brown bagging is the present participle and gerund of brown bag.

Noun

brown bagging (uncountable)

  1. The practice of carrying lunch to work (or school), frequently in a brown paper bag.
  2. The agricultural practice of planting seed saved from the farmer's own harvest, as opposed to buying new seed from a seed company.
  3. (pharmacy) A healthcare practice in which a pharmacy ships a drug directly to the patient, and the patient in turn must physically carry it to their clinic appointment.

Meaning of brown bag

Verb

brown bag (third-person singular simple present brown bags, present participle brown bagging, simple past and past participle brown bagged)

  1. (ambitransitive, informal) To carry one's packed lunch from home, either literally or figuratively in a brown paper bag or a lunchbox, rather than purchase it from a cafeteria or restaurant.
    • I'm brown bagging it again this month because the combination of healthy plus inexpensive is hard to beat otherwise.
  2. (ambitransitive, informal) To consume alcohol in public from the bottle or can, while it is held concealed inside a brown paper bag, so as to avoid attention e.g. from the police.
    • I'm brown bagging it again today because I haven't managed to kick this habit yet.
  3. (ambitransitive, informal) To plant seed saved from one's own harvest, as opposed to buying new seed from a seed company.
    • I'm brown bagging it again this year because I don't need to be spending money on expensive hybrids.

See all 5 meanings of brown bag

Questions about brown bagging

What does brown bagging mean?
Brown bagging means the practice of carrying lunch to work (or school), frequently in a brown paper bag.
What is brown bagging the present participle and gerund of?
Brown bagging is the present participle and gerund of brown bag.
What part of speech is brown bagging?
Brown bagging is a noun.

Words near brown bagging in the dictionary

  1. brown asbestos
  2. brown bag
  3. brown bag test
  4. brown bag tests
  5. brown bagged
  6. brown bagging
  7. brown bags
  8. brown bar
  9. brown bars
  10. brown bastard
  11. brown bastards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brown bagging (page history and authors); brown bag (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “brown bagging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brown_bagging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.