brune

Brune is primarily a French term that functions as the feminine form of the adjective brun. In everyday use, brune describes color, especially brown tones, and is commonly applied to hair color. For example, une femme brune means a woman with brown or dark hair. As a noun, une brune can refer to a brunette person, typically a woman, though English usage of this noun is uncommon and often found only in borrowings or stylized writing.

Etymology and form: the feminine brune derives from the masculine brun, both from Old French and ultimately from Latin brunus. The pair reflects a gendered adjective system in French, where adding a final -e marks the feminine form.

In other languages and contexts, brune may appear in borrowed phrases or as a surname. In English-language texts, brune is rarely used outside historical, literary, or translational contexts and is more often replaced by brunette or brown. As a proper noun, Brune can occur in surnames and, less frequently, in place names or brand names in multilingual contexts, though such uses are not established as a single, widely recognized category.

See also: brunette, brown, brun, brunet. The term brune is primarily of descriptive use in French, with limited and specialized adoption in other languages.