brown study

From obsolete brown (“gloomy”) and study.

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brown study (plural brown studies)

1. (idiomatic, dated) A melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought; a moody daydream.
   • 1690, [John] Dryden, Amphitryon; or, The Two Sosia’s. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […]; and M. Tonson […], published 1691, →OCLC, Act III, pages 29–30:

     Phædra. [...] Why Soſia! What, in a brown Study? / Soſia. A little cogitabund, or ſo; concerning this diſmal Revolution in our Family!

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:

     So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study.

   • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box:

     Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.

   • 1893, Stanley J. Weyman, “Chapter II. The King of Navarre”, in A Gentleman of France:

     After that he kept such a silence, falling as it seemed to me into a brown study, that he went away without so much as bidding me farewell, or being conscious, as far as I could tell, of my presence.

   • 1894, Stanley J. Weyman, “Chapter IV”, in Under the Red Robe:

     Once or twice she spoke harshly to Louis; she fell at other times into a brown study; and when she thought that I was not watching her, her face wore a look of deep anxiety.

   • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 428:

     But Quatrefages glared at his plate in a brown study.

Usually said as “somebody is in a brown study”.