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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

brownface en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈbɹaʊnˌfeɪs/

Etymology

From brown + face, based on earlier blackface.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) A style of theatrical makeup in which a white person colours the face brown in order to represent somebody of another race.
    • The problem isn’t so much Lancaster’s unconvincing brownface makeup — though it looks as if it had been applied by the same heavy laborers who blacktopped Laurence Olivier for “Othello” — as it is the extremely un-Leonardian softness of his presence. 2007 September 2, Terrence Rafferty, “Elmore Leonard’s Men of Few Words, in a Few Words”, in New York Times:

Relateds

blackface · transface · whiteface · yellowface · womanface · redface