茶色い
ちゃいろい · chairoi · JLPT N2 · noun
brown
🍫 茶色い = 茶 (tea) + 色 (color) + い (adjective ending): the color of brewed tea
茶 means tea and 色 means color, so 茶色 is the color of brewed tea. Adding い makes it an adjective: 茶色い = brown.
茶 — grass radical 艹 + 余 (phonetic)
茶 combines the grass radical 艹, indicating a plant, with 余 serving as the phonetic component. It originally derived from the older character 荼, which referred broadly to bitter herbs; a stroke was dropped during the Tang dynasty to distinguish the tea plant specifically. Today it means tea.
色 — person 人 (top) + kneeling figure 卩 (bottom)
Originally a pictograph showing one person above another, traditionally interpreted as depicting facial expressions or intimate posture between two people. The earliest meaning was 'facial expression' or 'countenance,' which extended to 'appearance' and eventually 'color' (the look of things). The 'shǎi' reading is a colloquial variant used for everyday color words.