embrown

Verb

embrown (third-person singular simple present embrowns, present participle embrowning, simple past and past participle embrowned)

1. (also, figuratively, literary, poetic, transitive) To make (something) brown; to brown.
   • For time ſhall with his ready pencil ſtand; / Retouch your figures with his ripening hand; / Mellow your colors, and imbrown the teint; / Add every grace, which time alone can grant; / To future ages ſhall your fame convey, / And give more beauties than he takes away.a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “Epistle the Fourteenth. To Sir Godfrey Kneller, Principal Painter to His Majesty.”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume II, London: […]...
   • For blight of the season embrowneth the bloom, / And time winnows falshood, like chaff, as it flies: […]1799, George Davies Harley, “The Reproof”, in Ballad Stories, Sonnets, &c, volume I, Bath, Somerset: […] R. Cruttwell; and sold by C[harles] Dilly, […], and W[illiam] Miller, […], →OCLC, stanza 2...

   Synonyms:

   brownify

2. (also, figuratively, literary, poetic, transitive) To make (something) dark or dusky (“having a rather dark shade of colour”); to brown, to darken.
   • […] Nature boon / Powrd forth profuſe on Hill and Dale and Plaine, / Both where the morning Sun firſt warmly ſmote / The open field, and where the unpierc't ſhade / Imbround the noontide Bowrs: […]1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
   • And thy dark Pencil, Midnight! darker ſtill / In Melancholy dipt, embrovvns the vvhole.1743, [Edward Young], “Night the Fifth. The Relapse. […]”, in The Complaint. Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality. Night the Fifth, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley […], and sold by M[ary]...
3. (also, figuratively, intransitive, literary, poetic) To become or make brown; to brown.
   • [O]n the board diſplay'd / The ready meal before Ulyſſes lay'd. / (VVith flour imbrovvn'd) next mingled vvine yet nevv, / And luſcious as the Bee's nectareous devv: […]1725, Homer, “Book XIV”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume III, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 238, lines 91–94
   • A greater opening ofttimes hedges up / With but a little forkful of his thorns / The villager, what time the grape imbrowns, […]1867, Dante Alighieri, “Canto IV”, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, transl., The Divine Comedy, volume II (Purgatorio), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 21, lines 19–21

   Synonyms:

   brownify

4. (also, figuratively, intransitive, literary, poetic) To become or make dark or dusky; to brown, to darken.
   • Under theſe Auſpices, Jamblicus compoſed the Book juſt before mentioned, Of the Mytſeries; meaning the profound and recondite Doctrines of the Egyptian Philoſophy: VVhich, at Bottom, is nothing elſe but the genuine Greek Philoſophy, imbrovvned vvith the Fanaticiſm of Eatſern Cant.1738, William Warburton, “Section IV”, in The Divine Legation of Moses […], volume I, London: […] Fletcher Gyles, […], →OCLC, book III, page 405
   • Now was the day departing, and the air, / Imbrown'd with shadows, from their toils releas'd / All animals on earth; […]1814, Dante Alighieri, “Canto II”, in H[enry] F[rancis] Cary, transl., The Vision; or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, of Dante Alighieri. […], volume I (Hell), London: […] [J. Barfield] for Taylor...