(zōng) - brown in Mandarin
zōngTraditional: 棕
Translation
brown
Word origin
Originally named palm-bark fibre (coir), as in 棕榈 (zōnglǚ, palm tree); the colour sense followed from the fibre's brown colour.
- Origin
- phono-semantic compound
- Root
- 木 (mù, tree/wood) + 宗 (zōng, phonetic)
Stroke order
棕
Examples
。
Her eyes are brown.
。
I bought a pair of brown shoes.
。
Brown bears mainly live in forests.
。
His sofa is dark brown.
，。
This coat is brown, not black.
棕 (zōng) means brown, though it rarely stands alone. Chinese usually builds the colour word with 色 (sè, colour) attached: 棕色 (zōngsè) is what actually gets said and written, the same way 红色 (hóngsè) is preferred over a bare 红 (hóng, red) in most contexts.
You will meet it constantly in descriptions: 棕色的头发 (zōngsè de tóufa, brown hair), 棕色的眼睛 (zōngsè de yǎnjīng, brown eyes). It also fuses into fixed compounds, most usefully 棕熊 (zōngxióng), the brown bear.
An English speaker's instinct is to treat 棕 (zōng) like 红 (hóng) and drop it in bare before a noun. Resist that with brown specifically: 棕色 is close to obligatory, where 红 can occasionally stand alone.
Where this fits
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棕: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "棕" (brown): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 109.