Brownface
//ˈbɹaʊnˌfeɪs// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A style of theatrical makeup in which a white person colours the face brown in order to represent somebody of another race. uncountable
"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."
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
From brown + face, based on earlier blackface.
More for "brownface"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.