Meaning
A light-skinned Black person — most often a light-skinned woman. In dancehall the 'brownin' is frequently praised, desired, and celebrated, and that very preference makes the word a focus of Jamaica's long, charged conversation about skin colour, class, and the legacy of colourism. To be a brownin can carry social advantage and admiration, and the word sits at the heart of debates about complexion and status, at once a term of praise in song and a marker of a real and painful bias.
Examples
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Di brownin gyal look nice inna di dress.
The light-skinned girl looks nice in the dress.
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Him always a chase after brownin.
He's always chasing after light-skinned women.
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Dark-skin gyal pretty same way as brownin.
Dark-skinned girls are just as pretty as light-skinned ones.
Origin
From English 'brown' plus the '-in(g)' ending, describing brown, light skin; made famous by a well-known 1990s dancehall song.
How it’s used
Usually admiring in tone, but tied to colourism — the social favouring of lighter skin — which makes it a loaded and debated term.