Word.ws English Dictionary

Brown Bess

Brown Bess noun: the British Army's Land Pattern Musket or any of its derivatives, standard-issue weapons for British soldiers in the American Revolution.

Noun

Brown Bess (plural Brown Besses)

  1. (informal) The British Army's Land Pattern Musket or any of its derivatives, standard-issue weapons for British soldiers in the American Revolution.
    Synonyms:
    Black Bess

Synonyms of Brown Bess

  • Black Bess

Forms of Brown Bess

pluralBrown Besses

Origin of Brown Bess

From an archaic meaning of brown, meaning plain or ordinary, and Bess, a nickname for Elizabeth associated with the lower class and prostitutes.

Questions about Brown Bess

What does Brown Bess mean?
Brown Bess means the British Army's Land Pattern Musket or any of its derivatives, standard-issue weapons for British soldiers in the American Revolution.
What part of speech is Brown Bess?
Brown Bess is a noun.
What is the plural of Brown Bess?
The plural of Brown Bess is Brown Besses.

Words near Brown Bess in the dictionary

  1. brown bear
  2. brown bears
  3. brown bent
  4. brown bentgrass
  5. brown bents
  6. Brown Bess
  7. Brown Besses
  8. Brown Betties
  9. Brown Betty
  10. Brown Betty teapot
  11. Brown Betty teapots

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Brown Bess (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Brown Bess.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brown_bess. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.