Chestnut or castaneous is a

colour Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

, a medium reddish shade of

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model use ...

(displayed right), and is named after the nut of the

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelate ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

. An alternate name for the colour is badious. Indian red is a similar but separate and distinct colour from ''chestnut''. Chestnut is also a very dark tan that almost appears brown.

Etymology

The name ''chestnut'' derives from the color of the nut of the

tree. The first recorded use of ''chestnut'' as a color term in English was in 1555. The color

maroon Maroon ( US/ UK , Australia ) is a brownish crimson color that takes its name from the French word ''marron'', or chestnut. "Marron" is also one of the French translations for "brown". According to multiple dictionaries, there are var ...

is also named after the chestnut (via French ''marron'').

Variations of chestnut

Deep chestnut

Deep chestnut is the color called ''chestnut'' in

Crayola Crayola LLC, formerly the Binney & Smith Company, is an American manufacturing company specializing in art supplies. It is known for its brand ''Crayola'' and best known for its crayons. The company is headquartered in Forks Township, Pennsylv ...

crayon A crayon (or wax pastel) is a stick of pigmented wax used for writing or drawing. Wax crayons differ from pastels, in which the pigment is mixed with a dry binder such as gum arabic, and from oil pastels, where the binder is a mixture of wax ...

s. This colour was also produced in a special limited edition in which it was called Vermont maple syrup. At the request of educators worried that children (mistakenly) believed the name represented the skin colour of Native Americans, Crayola changed the name of their crayon colour "Indian Red", originally formulated in 1958, to "Chestnut" in 1999. In reality, the colour Indian red has nothing to do with American Indians but is an iron oxide pigment the use of which is popular in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

Chestnut in nature

* The chestnut-coloured woodpecker * The

chestnut-backed chickadee The chestnut-backed chickadee (''Poecile rufescens''), formerly ''Parus rufescens'', is a small passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae. It is found in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and western Canada, from southern Alaska to sout ...

* The coat of the

bongo Bongo may refer to: Entertainment * ''Bongo'' (Australian TV series), on air from August to November 1960 * Bongo Comics, a comic book publishing company * Bongo (''Dragon Ball'') or Krillin, a character in ''Dragon Ball'' media * ''Bongo'' ...

Chestnut in human culture

;Animal husbandry *

Chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelate ...

is a coat colour of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million ...

s. ;Cosmetology * Brown chestnut hair is a human hair colour.

References