Maroon (US: UK: mə-ROON, Australia: mə-ROHN) is a brownish red color that takes its name from the French word marron, meaning chestnut. Marron is also one of the French translations for "brown".
Terms describing interchangeable shades, with overlapping RGB ranges, include burgundy, claret, mulberry, and crimson.
Different dictionaries define maroon differently. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines maroon as a dark reddish-purple color while its "American Dictionary" section defines maroon as dark brown-red. Lexico online dictionary defines maroon as a brownish-red. Similarly, Dictionary.com defines maroon as a dark brownish-red. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes maroon as "a brownish-crimson or claret colour," while the Merriam-Webster online dictionary simply defines it as a dark red.
In the sRGB color model for additive color representation, the web color called maroon is created by turning down the brightness of pure red to about one half. It is also noted that maroon is the complement of the web color called teal.
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Etymology
Maroon is French marron ("chestnut"), itself from the Italian marrone that also means "chestnut" and "brown" from the medieval Greek maraon.
The first recorded use of maroon as a color name in English was in 1789.
In culture
Religion
Vajrayana Buddhist monks, such as the Dalai Lama, wear maroon robes.
Maroon, along with golden yellow, is worn in the Philippines by Catholic devotees of the Black Nazarene, especially during its procession on 9 January.
National symbols
Maroon and white are the colors of the Flag of Qatar.
Flag of Phoenix, Arizona is maroon and white.
Maroon, gold, teal and orange are the colors of the Flag of Sri Lanka.
The Flag of Latvia has sometimes been called maroon and white, although the officially declared colors were red and white, and in 2009 were amended to carmine and white.
Maroon was named as the official color of the state of Queensland, Australia, in November 2003. While the declared shade of maroon in sRGB is R=115, G=24, B=44, Queenslanders display the spirit of the state by wearing all shades of maroon at sporting and cultural events.
Politics
Maroon is the color of the Dutch far-right political party Forum for Democracy.
Military
The distinctive maroon beret has been worn by many airborne forces around the world, starting with the British Parachute Regiment (nicknamed the "Maroon Machine") in 1942. It is sometimes referred to as the "red beret."
Historically, maroon was the distinguishing color of the Caçadores (rifle) regiments of the Portuguese Army.
Commercial variations of maroon
Maroon (Crayola)
The color designated as maroon in Crayola crayons since 1958 (when it was renamed from dark red) is a bright medium shade of maroon halfway between brown and rose.
Rich maroon (maroon (X11))
Displayed in the adjacent table is the color rich maroon, i.e. maroon as defined in the X11 color names, which is much brighter and more toned toward rose than the HTML/CSS maroon shown above.
See the chart Color name clashes in the X11 color names article to see those colors that are different in HTML/CSS and X11.
Mystic maroon
Displayed at right is the color mystic maroon, one of the colors in the special set of metallic Crayola crayons called Silver Swirls, the colors of which were formulated by Crayola in 1990.
Although this is supposed to be a metallic color, there is no mechanism for displaying metallic colors on a computer.
Dark red
The web color dark red is displayed in the adjacent color table.