auburn
adjEtymology Early Modern English auburn (“brown, reddish brown”) from Middle English aubourne, abron, abroune, abrune (“light brown, yellowish brown, blond”), alteration (due to conflation with Middle English brun (“brown”)) of earlier auborne (“yellowish-white, flaxen”) from Old French auborne, alborne (“blond, flaxen, off-white”) from Medieval Latin alburnus (“whitish”), from Latin albus (“white”). More at albino, brown.
1
Of a reddish-brown colour.
- All were watching somebody in the garden with deep interest, their three faces close together: a jovial and round one, a pale one with dark hair, and a fair one whose tresses were auburn. “Don’t push! You can see as well as I,” said Retty, the auburn-haired and youngest girl, without removing her eyes from the window.1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXI, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC:
- […]; nor was Miss Wilkinson the ideal: he had often pictured to himself the great violet eyes and the alabaster skin of some lovely girl, and he had thought of himself burying his face in the rippling masses of her auburn hair.1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XXXIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
1 more example
- I never thought I'd meet a girl like you / Meet a girl like you / With auburn hair and tawny eyes1982, “I Ran (So Far Away)”, performed by A Flock of Seagulls: