Word.ws English Dictionary

brunaille

brunaille adjective: consisting of shades of brown, painted or executed with shades of brown, brown monochrome.

brunaille: consisting of shades of brown, painted or executed with shades of brown, brown monochrome
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

brunaille (not comparable)

  1. Consisting of shades of brown, painted or executed with shades of brown, brown monochrome.
    • A corporate desire for identity and recognition also helps to explain the unusual coincidence of a traditional brunaille exterior in conjunction with a crowded, lively, visually striking interior painted in the most novel, fashionable, local style.1984, Larry Silver, The Paintings of Quinten Massys, page 48

Noun

brunaille (countable and uncountable, plural brunailles)

  1. A method of painting or other work that uses shades of brown primarily or exclusively.
    • Genre paintings in grisaille (grey monochrome) or brunaille (brown monochrome) by Adriaen van de Venne represent a special chapter in Dutch art history.1986, Görel Cavalli-Björkman, Dutch and Flemish Paintings, volume 2, page 483
  2. An artwork or study executed in this style.
    • Paintings of this kind are known as brunailles – by analogy with grisailles, which are paintings done mainly in grey.1996, Jeroen Giltaij, Jan Kelch, Praise of Ships and the Sea: The Dutch Marine Painters of the 17th Century, page 370

Forms of brunaille

pluralbrunailles

Origin of brunaille

From French brunaille, from brun (“brown”). Compare grisaille.

Questions about brunaille

What does brunaille mean?
Brunaille means consisting of shades of brown, painted or executed with shades of brown, brown monochrome.
What part of speech is brunaille?
Brunaille can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near brunaille in the dictionary

  1. Brun sieve
  2. Brun sieves
  3. Brun's constant
  4. Brun's theorem
  5. Brunai
  6. brunaille
  7. brunailles
  8. brunatre
  9. brunch
  10. brunch word
  11. brunch words

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brunaille (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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