Brownie

How to spell brownie

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce brownie

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does brownie mean?

1. nounA small square of rich, dense chocolate cake, often containing nuts.
2. nounA small, helpful household spirit of British and Scottish folklore that does chores in secret.
3. nounA young member of the junior branch of the Girl Guides or Girl Scouts.

Brownie in a sentence

• She baked one large brownie and cut it into squares for the office party.

• The old tale describes a brownie who tidied the farmhouse each night.

• Her daughter joined the local brownie pack after school.

• He ordered a warm brownie with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

• According to legend, you must leave milk out for the brownie or it will leave.

• Each brownie earned a badge for completing the cooking task.

Where does brownie come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Brownie is built straightforwardly on the adjective 'brown', which comes from the Old English 'brun', meaning a dark or dusky colour, joined to the diminutive ending '-ie' that English uses to make a small or affectionate noun. The oldest sense is Scottish: a brownie was a small, helpful household spirit, so called because it was imagined as a little brown-clad creature that did chores at night in return for a bowl of cream, a usage recorded from the 1500s. The familiar baked sense is much younger and American, appearing around 1900 for a small square of dense chocolate cake, again named simply for its rich brown colour. The junior branch of the Girl Guides took the name 'Brownies' in the early twentieth century, borrowing the friendly folk-sprite image of small helpers. Because the word is just 'brown' with a tacked-on '-ie', the only real spelling decision is remembering the 'ie' ending rather than a stray 'y'.

How the word is built

• brown (the colour)
• -ie (diminutive/noun suffix)