# brownie

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈbɹaʊni/ · frequency rank #22,020

## Definitions
1. A small square piece of rich cake, usually made with chocolate.
2. A sweet bread with brown sugar and currants.
3. A mythical creature, a helpful elf who would secretly do people's housework for them.
4. A copper coin, brown in colour; a penny, halfpenny, or cent.
5. A household spirit or revered ancestor.
6. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the Eurasian genus Miletus.
7. A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
8. A widow rockfish (Sebastes entomelas), a fish in the family Sebastidae.
9. Alternative letter-case form of Brownie (“a girl in the first level of Girl Guides (US: Girl Scouts)”).
10. A tall, long-necked beer bottle, made from brown coloured glass.
11. A person with brown skin.

## Etymology
From brown + -ie (diminutive suffix). In folkloric sense, originally Scots. For sense 7, compare with Dutch kabouter (“a very young female member of the scout movement”) (literally "gnome").

## Easily confused with
- **browse** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/brownie-vs-browse)
- **browning** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/brownie-vs-browning)
- **brownish** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/brownie-vs-brownish)
- **Brownlee** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/brownie-vs-brownlee)
- **brown** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/brown-vs-brownie)
- **Bowie** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/bowie-vs-brownie)
- **bronze** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/bronze-vs-brownie)
- **Bonnie** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/bonnie-vs-brownie)
- **brodie** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/brodie-vs-brownie)
- **browned** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/browned-vs-brownie)

## Common misspellings (10)
`bbrownie`, `borwnie`, `bronwie`, `browine`, `brownei`, `brownnie`, `browwnie`, `brrownie`, `brwonie`, `rbownie`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/brownie