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Glite Dictionary
🏠 A city townhouse 🪨 A building stone
brownstone

brownstone

23 4.8
A city house built of reddish-brown stone that stands in a row
  • noun
  • /ˈbraʊnˌstoʊn/
  • US
translation icon : casa de arenisca
  • Wills emerges from Charlotte's brownstone, hails a cab, then decides against it.

And in that time, brownstones, I mean, they were cheaper obviously than they are now, but I couldn't afford that as a college student.

Examples

  • The war started yesterday, and hospice visited Pop at his brownstone on Bank Street in Greenwich Village.

    Academic text (2003)

  • The postman marches up the front steps of the brownstone, sorting through letters and packages.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • I said I lived in a huge brownstone.

    Wonder (2017)

  • I found a really cute brownstone.

    Uncle Drew (2018)

  • Frank's house was in the middle of the block, as brownstone as the others around it.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • They bought her a brownstone for graduation.

    The Hollars (2016)

  • The minivan parked outside a small brownstone right on the square.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Mr. Van Dorn and his wife lived in a comfortable six-bedroom brownstone across from Montrose Park.

    Blacklight (2022)

  • A typical Upper West Side neighborhood: rows of brownstones framed by tree-lined streets.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Mr. Freitag lives in a carefully furnished brownstone that has been in his family since 1920.

Synonyms

townhouse
vsbrownstone
47 2.0

A house that shares walls with other houses in a row, often in a city

is the same kind but specifically built of reddish brown sandstone
greystone
vsbrownstone
  • UK
1 5.6

A large house made of gray stone often found in cities

is similar in being a stone urban dwelling but uses reddish brown sandstone

Surface Forms

brownstone singular
brownstones plural

Morphology

brownstone = brown + stone (semi-transparent) = brown + stone

The components are clear, but the sense 'townhouse built of brownstone' is a metonymic/cultural extension from material to building type that may not be obvious to all learners.

Etymology

Brownstone first named the reddish-brown building 'rock' (brown + stone) and then came to mean a townhouse made from that material. So a brownstone is a house built of that brown stone, common in cities like New York.