Word.ws English Dictionary

brownie

Syllables: brown·ieUK/ˈbɹaʊni/

brownie noun: a small square piece of rich cake, usually made with chocolate. Also the alternative letter-case form of Brownie.

brownie: a small square piece of rich cake, usually made with chocolate
Image: en:Gdr, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

brownie (countable and uncountable, plural brownies)

  1. (countable, usually) A small square piece of rich cake, usually made with chocolate.
    • Order for the brownie was placed but it took half an hour to prepare it.
    • […]if she ever found out she was dying, she'd just eat brownies all day and night until the very end.2000, Lori Gottlieb, Stick Figure: a diary of my former self, page 173
  2. (Australia, New Zealand, uncountable) A sweet bread with brown sugar and currants.
    • It was an amusing sight to see the three of us, each with a huge hunch of “browny” (bread sweetened with brown sugar and currants) in one hand, and a lump of ice in the other, for there was no water within reach.1883, James Edge Partington, “A Race Meeting in the Bush—A Graphic Though Ungallant Picture—Life on an Australian Stock Farm—[…]” (chapter VII), in Random Rot. A Journal of Three Years’ Wanderings...
    • They rode quietly along to the stockman’s hut, gave their message, rested their horses for half-an-hour, and had some tea without milk, and a piece of cake made of flour, fat, and sugar, commonly known as [“]browny.”1890, E[lphinstone] Davenport Cleland, “‘The Shaking’ Mallee Tree”, in The White Kangaroo. A Tale of Colonial Life. Founded on Fact., London: Wells Gardner, Darton, & Co., […], page 57
  3. A mythical creature, a helpful elf who would secretly do people's housework for them.
    • 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...1828, Thomas Keightley, Fairy Mythology, volume II, page 169
    • "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."1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 5
  4. A copper coin, brown in colour; a penny, halfpenny, or cent.
    • He rose and jingled in his pockets for change and drew out two brownies. He went and set one on each of Monroe’s eyes[.]1997, Charles Frazier, chapter 2, in Cold Mountain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 36
  5. A household spirit or revered ancestor.
  6. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the Eurasian genus Miletus.
  7. (informal) A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
  8. (informal) A widow rockfish (Sebastes entomelas), a fish in the family Sebastidae.
    • 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.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...
  9. (Australia, New Zealand, colloquial) A tall, long-necked beer bottle, made from brown coloured glass.
  10. (ethnic, offensive, slur) A person with brown skin.

Noun (2) capitalized: Brownie

Brownie (plural Brownies)

  1. (Australia, Canada, UK) A junior Girl Guide.
    • In Toronto young Brownies of the Girl Guides, the Canadian girl scouts, stood in parade formation with full-fledged Guides.1958 July 14, Boot by a Brash Brownie, LIFE, page 124
    • The ideal Brownie pack, according to the 1960 Guide Commissioner′s Handbook, would contain Brownies who were ‘alert, clean, tidy and punctual. Their uniform should be correct.’1997, Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby-Boom Generation, page 102
    Synonyms:
    Rosebud
  2. (US) A junior Girl Scout.
    • Any girl willing to follow the simple rules can join the Girl Scouts. As Brownies they will spend most of their time playing games and singing songs like the Brownie Smile Song: “I′ve something in my pocket; It belongs across my face, And I keep it very close at hand In a most convenient place.......1952 March 24, Girl Scouts: They Are Observing Their 40th Birthday, LIFE, page 109
    • Most marchers were children, Girl and Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Brownies. One Cub Scout pulled his sister in a Radio Flyer decorated with small American flags. A Brownie pushed a baby carriage crammed with a zoo of stuffed animals.1997, Samuel F. Pickering, “The Blue Caterpillar”, in The Blue Caterpillar and Other Essays, page 63

Proper noun capitalized: Brownie

Brownie

  1. A nickname of the surname Brown.

Also used as

brownie is also the alternative letter-case form of Brownie.

brownie meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

brownie in Hindi

ब्राउनी, ब्राऊनी, ब्राउनि

brownie in Marathi

ब्राऊनी, ब्राउनी, ब्राउनि

brownie in Urdu

براونی, براؤنی, براؤنئی

brownie in Bengali

ব্রাউনি
More languagesFewer languages
brownie in Telugu
బ్రౌనీ
brownie in Malayalam
ബ്രൌണി, ബ്രൌനി
brownie in Kannada
ಬ್ರೌನಿ, ಬ್ರೌನೀ, ಬ್ರೌನಿಯು
brownie in Punjabi
ਬ੍ਰਾਊਨੀ, ਬਰਾਊਨੀ, ਬ੍ਰਾਉਨੀ
brownie in Gujarati
બ્રાઉની, બ્રાઉનિ
brownie in Odia
ବ୍ରାଉନି, ବ୍ରାଉନୀ
brownie in Nepali
ब्राउनी, ब्राउनि
brownie in Arabic
جنيَة سمراء صغيرَة
brownie in Indonesian
bronis
brownie in Thai
บราวนี bpraao-níi
brownie in Vietnamese
ma tốt

Examples of brownie in a sentence

  • Rona served Althea coffee with yellow milk curdling in the center, and a hunk of brownie, and Althea said, “Thanks so much.”2000, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, “The Visible Man”, in The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday...
  • On a Saturday afternoon, my wife bought her favorite treat for dessert that evening, a gourmet, nut-filled brownie.2005, Aaron Lazare, On Apology, unnumbered page:
  • After cooking the brownies until we could smell the pot, we each ate a large brownie.2005, Steve Otto, Memoirs of a Drugged-Up, Sex-Crazed Yippie, page 228:
  • Four o’clock, “Smoke O!” again, and more tea and “brownie” (a bread sweetened with sugar and currants).1890 September 20, M. Hirst Browne, “Shearing-Time in the Riverine”, in The Argus, number 13,804, Melbourne, Vic., page 13, column 6:

All 40 example sentences with brownie

Synonyms of brownie

Forms of brownie

pluralbrownies
pluralBrownies

Plural of brownie: brownies

Origin of brownie

From brown + -ie (diminutive suffix). In folkloric sense, originally Scots. For sense 7, compare with Dutch kabouter (“a very young female member of the scout movement”) (literally "gnome").

From brownie (“a helpful elf”). Specifically, inspired by the story "The Brownies" by Juliana Horatia Ewing (published in 1870, The Brownies and Other Tales), in which two children, Tommy and Betty, learn that children can be helpful brownies or lazy boggarts. But compare with Dutch kabouter (“a very young female member of the scout movement”) (literally, a "gnome").

From Brown + -ie.

Words formed from brownie

Phrases with brownie

Words that rhyme with brownie

Questions about brownie

What does brownie mean?
Brownie means a small square piece of rich cake, usually made with chocolate.
What is brownie in Hindi?
Brownie in Hindi is ब्राउनी, ब्राऊनी, ब्राउनि. See Brownie meaning in Hindi.
How do you use brownie in a sentence?
Rona served Althea coffee with yellow milk curdling in the center, and a hunk of brownie, and Althea said, “Thanks so much.”
What part of speech is brownie?
Brownie can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce brownie?
Brownie is pronounced /ˈbɹaʊni/ (UK).
What is the plural of brownie?
The plural of brownie is brownies.

Words near brownie in the dictionary

  1. Brownian movement
  2. Brownian movements
  3. Brownian noise
  4. Brownian ratchet
  5. Brownian ratchets
  6. brownie
  7. brownie point
  8. brownie points
  9. brownier
  10. brownies
  11. browniest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brownie (page history and authors); Brownie (page history and authors); brownie (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brownie (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 brownie.ogg.

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