English

Noun

brownface ‎(uncountable)

1. A style of theatrical makeup in which a white person colours the face brown in order to represent somebody of another race.
   • 2007 September 2, Terrence Rafferty, “Elmore Leonard’s Men of Few Words, in a Few Words”, in New York Times:

     The problem isn’t so much Lancaster’s unconvincing brownface makeup — though it looks as if it had been applied by the same heavy laborers who blacktopped Laurence Olivier for “Othello” — as it is the extremely un-Leonardian softness of his presence.

Related terms

• blackface
• redface
• whiteface
• yellowface