brown bear
6
1.9
- noun
- /braʊn bɛr/
:
oso pardo
- During the wildlife tour, our guide explained how a brown bear can weigh over a thousand pounds.
- Alaskan brown bear
- grizzly brown bear
- brown bear cub
Examples
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Beyond the ring of light cast by the flames, we could hear an agitated brown bear circling around us in the undergrowth.
Fiction book (2002) -
Looking up, he saw an enormous 9-1/2 to 10-foot brown bear standing upright, watching him from 40 yards away.
Fiction book (1992) -
In the first dream, what kind of bear was it? - A brown bear.
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The brown bear was his mother.
Fiction book (2001) -
There are still brown bears living in the mountains in the north of Spain.
Blog text (16) -
Love the very first picture with the green grass, wildflowers, and the brown bear.
Blog text (3) -
I counted three brown bears and four moose.
Academic text (1990) -
A bowhunting trip in the wilds of Alaska capsizes into a battle to survive in brown bear country.
Fiction book (2002) -
While hiking in the national park, we spotted a majestic brown bear foraging for food.
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At dawn, the brown bear emerged from the forest in search of breakfast.
Synonyms
957
1.0
A large heavy animal with thick fur and strong claws
30
9.5
A bear often shown as a character in stories or fables
A large brown bear that lives in Europe, Asia and North America
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a bear that is brown' is directly and compositionally derived from the adjective 'brown' modifying the noun 'bear'; there is no idiomatic shift or metaphor. This adjective+noun pattern is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the intended animal.
Etymology
Brown bear comes from a simple picture: a brown, dark-furred bear. People used the color to tell this animal from others like the polar bear or the black bear, so today brown bear means the 'large animal with brown fur'.