How to Use tawny in a Sentence

tawny

1 of 2 adjective
  • Rain streamed from their whiskers and soaked their tawny coats.
    — Sarah Kingdom, Forbes.com, 12 June 2026
  • Here are the blue skies, the tawny hills, the grapevines tinged fierce red.
    — Krista Simmons, Sunset Magazine, 3 Nov. 2023
  • The dogs -- two boys and a girl -- are black and tawny with big, adorable eyes.
    — CBS News, 3 Jan. 2018
  • My one gripe with trench coats is that the tawny beige shade washes me out.
    — Kaitlin Clapinski, InStyle, 30 Jan. 2026
  • But winter isn’t, or at least doesn’t have to be, all tawny and gray.
    — Paul Cappiello, The Courier-Journal, 10 Jan. 2020
  • The tawny owl’s dark release of song quavered from the pine wood.
    — Literary Hub, 19 Sep. 2025
  • And birds of prey like buzzards, sparrowhawks, barn owls, and tawny owls.
    — Elizabeth Waddington, Treehugger, 13 Sep. 2023
  • The spare, tawny walls take on a rich glow under the light of dim chandeliers.
    — Esther Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 May 2018
  • Her normally tawny skin flamed crimson red across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.
    — Marla Broadfoot, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2021
  • All jawline and tawny hair, strapping, like he’s made of marble?
    — Christina Newland, Vulture, 18 Aug. 2021
  • All jawline and tawny hair, strapping, like he’s made of marble?
    — Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 20 Sep. 2025
  • Foxes and tawny owls are among the many animals calling it home.
    — Constant Méheut, New York Times, 28 Dec. 2022
  • Photos show the long, lean cat is tawny in color with dark spots and has lengthy ears rounded at the top.
    — orlandosentinel.com, 14 Sep. 2020
  • The hill is as green as Ireland in winter and spring, and a tawny brown the rest of the year.
    — Carl Nolte, SFChronicle.com, 21 Mar. 2020
  • Her tawny tone had the heady effect of a bourbon with a rich bouquet and a smooth finish.
    — Jim Farber, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2022
  • Gravel comes in a range of colors, including tawny browns and cool grays.
    — Elizabeth Jardina, Better Homes & Gardens, 14 Sep. 2021
  • Most of their coat is tawny in color and covered in spots and lines, while the fur on their bellies is white.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Feb. 2023
  • Next, move on to the Smoked Fish, which is not smoked at all but deep-fried, then steeped in a tawny gravy.
    — The New Yorker, 17 Sep. 2021
  • Stronger blues will have many blue or greenish veins throughout and are more likely to have a tan or tawny tint and very strong smell.
    — Washington Post, 8 Sep. 2021
  • The donkeys grazed on a recent afternoon in the tall grass — tawny figures in a sea of green.
    — Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2020
  • The only movement is his coat, a tangle of tawny dreadlocks that ripples and waves in the stiff wind.
    — Andrew McKean, Outdoor Life, 21 Feb. 2020
  • Many of Argyle’s diamonds have a chocolatey brown or tawny hue.
    — Maya Wei-Haas, New York Times, 19 Sep. 2023
  • Four other colors are available in addition to the tawny brown that's shown, though prices vary.
    — Kylee McGuigan, Popular Mechanics, 19 Aug. 2022
  • Thick veins pulsate along his tawny arms, which move in concert over the gold-grey nylon fishing net sprawled in front of him.
    — The Economist, 13 Jan. 2021
  • From a distance, the young male with the thick, tawny coat was distinguishable by a blue tag affixed to each ear.
    — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5 July 2017
  • Right there, big as a horse, stood a tawny cow nilgai, broadside and oblivious at just 60 paces.
    — Dave Hurteau, Field & Stream, 4 Apr. 2023
  • This condition wasn’t summoned just by the shoyu broth, a tawny liquid whose warmth seemed to flow through my veins like a sedative.
    — Tim Carman, Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2020
  • Here, dozens of young men and women, mostly taut and tawny, glistened beneath the afternoon sun.
    — Deanna Pan, BostonGlobe.com, 23 Aug. 2019
  • His students are also doing a 2019 barbera in a tawny port style.
    — Georgann Yara, The Arizona Republic, 19 Aug. 2020
  • Great cornerbacks are football’s tawny owls, the biggest of the big-game hunters, dogging prey through darkness and chaos.
    — Sean Keeler, Denver Post, 31 Aug. 2025

tawny

2 of 2 noun
  • The dropping, distant tawny on the far side of Coombe Wood.
    — Literary Hub, 19 Sep. 2025
  • As Zarate places the skewers on the cast iron, the strips of flesh sear on contact, the anticucho sauce sizzling into an instant tawny crust.
    — Patric Kuh, Los Angeles Magazine, 29 Sep. 2017
  • For winemakers considering the port route, Karlicek said deciding whether to go ruby or tawny would be the first step.
    — Georgann Yara, The Arizona Republic, 19 Aug. 2020
  • Lunar eclipses occur when the sun and moon are in direct opposition, a phenomenon that temporarily turns the moon a tawny, red tone.
    — Aliza Kelly Faragher, Allure, 29 June 2018
  • Between us are a tawny Oriental rug and a table set with a pot of coffee and a spread of pastries in a striped Financier Patisserie box.
    — Amy Chozick, Vogue, 21 Mar. 2023
  • Baker’s synaesthesiac grasp of the tawny’s song, in which its voice can ruffle the fur of night and in which silence is luminous, may be reflected in the neural structure of the owl’s brain.
    — Literary Hub, 19 Sep. 2025
  • From the air, this lowland delta, covering an area the size of Nebraska, is a tawny-and-cobalt expanse of tundra and tributaries and lakes, its looping rivers etching a dazzling curlicue.
    — Simon Montlake, The Christian Science Monitor, 1 July 2019
  • Continue whisking for up to 20-30 minutes on a very slow flame until the roux goes from a light tawny to the color of peanut butter or dark chocolate (depending on its eventual use).
    — Amy Brothers, The Denver Post, 11 May 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tawny.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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