brown bear

noun

: any of several chiefly brown bears that are usually considered a single species (Ursus arctos), that formerly inhabited western North America from Alaska to northern Mexico and much of Europe and Asia but are now much restricted in range, and that include the grizzly bear and Kodiak bear

Illustration of brown bear

Examples of brown bear in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Robin Hood and Maid Marian were depicted as red foxes, while Little John was a brown bear, and Prince John was a lion. —Ryan Gajewski, HollywoodReporter, 6 Mar. 2026

Alaska’s coastal brown bears source a great deal of their food from the shores and beaches. —Tyler Freel, Outdoor Life, 4 Mar. 2026

The 2000s brought Nick Jans’ The Grizzly Maze, which painted a layered, nuanced portrait of Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived alongside coastal brown bears in Katmai Alaska for thirteen summers before being mauled by a bear in 2003. —Literary Hub, 3 Mar. 2026

PoseSwin was trained on over 72,000 photos of 109 different brown bears taken by APU researcher Beth Rosenberg between 2017 and 2022. —Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 29 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1757, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for brown bear

• abwehr
• affair
• affaire
• airfare
• altair
• armchair
• aware
• beware
• bugbear
• carfare
• childcare
• compare

Kids Definition

brown bear

noun

: any of several bears that are mostly brown in color, are usually lumped together in a single species including the grizzly bear, and at one time inhabited much of North America from Alaska to northern Mexico as well as Europe and Asia