Brown study

A brown study is a state of abstraction or deep thought and the expression dates from the early 16th century. Brown is obviously a dark, gloomy colour and study is used in its now obsolete sense of a reverie or abstraction. Its first appearance in print is in Gilbert Walker’s Manifest of Detection in Dice-play (1532), “Lack of company will soon lead a man into a brown study.” It also appears in the works of John Lyly Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1579). “It seems to me (said she) that you are in some brown study.” It is not known who coined it.