Dictionary

brown study en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

From obsolete brown (“gloomy”) and study.

Meanings

1. (dated, idiomatic) A melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought; a moody daydream.
   • Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts. 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box:
   • So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study. 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:
   • Major Valentine came in—to find me in a brown study. 1918, Joseph Smith Fletcher, “Chapter III: The Covent Garden Fruit Shop”, in Paul Campenhaye, Specialist in Criminology:
   • Phædra. [...] Why Soſia! What, in a brown Study? / Soſia. A little cogitabund, or ſo; concerning this diſmal Revolution in our Family! 1690, [John] Dryden, Amphitryon; or, The Two Sosia’s. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […]; and M. Tonson […], published 1691, →OCLC, Act III, pages 29–30:
   • But Quatrefages glared at his plate in a brown study. 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 428:
   • Once or twice she spoke harshly to Louis; she fell at other times into a brown study; and when she thought that I was not watching her, her face wore a look of deep anxiety. 1894, Stanley J. Weyman, “Chapter IV”, in Under the Red Robe:
   • After that he kept such a silence, falling as it seemed to me into a brown study, that he went away without so much as bidding me farewell, or being conscious, as far as I could tell, of my presence. 1893, Stanley J. Weyman, “Chapter II. The King of Navarre”, in A Gentleman of France:

Forms

Translations (9)

fr blues (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · pl zaduma (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · ru глубо́кое разду́мье (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · pl zamyślenie (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · cmn 冥思出神 (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · fi mietteet (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · fr mélancolie (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · pl medytacja (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought) · fr bourdon (melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought)