dun

• IPA^(key): /dʌn/
• Rhymes: -ʌn

From Middle English dun, dunne, from Old English dunn (“dun, dingy brown, bark-colored, brownish black”), from Proto-Germanic *dusnaz (“brown, yellow”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“to smoke, raise dust”). Cognate with Old Saxon dun (“brown, dark”), Old High German tusin (“ash-gray, dull brown, pale yellow, dark”), Old Norse dunna (“female mallard; duck”).

Alternative etymology derives the Old English word from Brythonic (compare Middle Welsh dwnn (“dark (red)”)), from Proto-Celtic *dusnos (compare Old Irish donn), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰews- (compare Old Saxon dosan (“chestnut brown”)). More at dusk.

dun (usually uncountable, plural duns)

1. A brownish grey colour.

   dun colour:  

dun (not comparable)

1. Of a brownish grey colour.
   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene v], lines 48–49, page 134, column 2:

     Come, thick Night, / And pall thee in the dunneſt ſmoake of Hell, / That my keene Knife ſee not the Wound it makes, / Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke, / To cry, hold, hold.

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130:

     If ſnow be white, why then her breſts are dun

   • 1827, John Keble, The Christian Year, London: Walter Scott, OCLC 65605495, Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity:

     glows the setting sun [...] and chill and dun / Falls on the moor the brief November day.

• dun-bar
• dunnock
• donkey (possibly)
• Donn-chadh or Duncan, Gaelic meaning "brown warrior"

• bawn
• durmast oak
• Appendix:Colors

Unknown; perhaps a variant of din. Several sources suggest origin from Joe Dun, the name of a bailiff known for arresting debtors, but this is controversial.

dun (plural duns)

1. (countable) A collector of debts.
   • 1889 [1712], John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull, London: Cassell & Co., OCLC 6255586, page 71:

     Look ye, gentlemen, I have lived with credit in the world, and it grieves my heart never to stir out of my doors but to be pulled by the sleeve by some rascally dun or other.

   • 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, Ch. 18:

     Melancholy duns came looking for him at all hours.

   • 1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York 2007, p. 102:

     ‘Frank's worried about duns,’ she said as the butler went away.

2. An urgent request or demand of payment.
   • 1842, A.B.G., “Errata”, in Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate, volume 13, OCLC 10193591, page 251:

     Miss Hoppin received a dun for volume 9 1840–1 which Mr. James McConnell, (who now pays the above) is sure was paid.

dun (third-person singular simple present duns, present participle dunning, simple past and past participle dunned)

1. (transitive) To ask or beset a debtor for payment.
   • 1768, Jonathan Swift, The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, London: C. Bathurst, OCLC 459163337, Miscellanies in Verse, page 309:

     And hath she sent so soon to dun?

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Folio Society 1973, p. 577:

     Of all he had received from Lady Bellaston, not above five guineas remained and that very morning he had been dunned by a tradesman for twice that sum.

2. (transitive) To harass by continually repeating e.g. a request.
   • 1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin 2010, p. 107:

     Rich bitches who had to be dunned for their milk bills would pay him right now.

• dun letter

Uncertain; likely from the color.

dun (plural duns)

1. (countable) A newly hatched, immature mayfly; a mayfly subimago.
   • 1966, John Harris, An Angler's Entomology, New York: Barnes, OCLC 3612670, page 16:

     Also, duns are dull and generally sober colored, whilst spinners are more brightly colored and shining and their wings are clear and transparent.

2. (countable, fishing) A fly made to resemble the mayfly subimago.
   • 1676, Charles Cotton, The Compleat Angler. Being Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream, London: Richard Marriott, and Henry Brome, OCLC 228732346, March, page 59:

     We have besides for this Month a little Dun call'd a whirling Dun (though it is not the whirling Dun indeed, which is one of the best Flies we have) and for this the dubbing must be of the bottom fur of a Squirrels tail and the wing of the grey feather of a Drake.

• subimago

From Irish dún or Scottish Gaelic dùn, from Proto-Celtic *dūnom (“fortress”). Cognate with Welsh dinas (“city”).

• doon

dun (plural duns)

1. An ancient or medieval fortification; especially a hill-fort in Scotland or Ireland.
   • 1858, Henry MacLauchlan, Memoir written during a survey of the Roman Wall, through the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland, in the years 1852-1854, London: Printed for private circulation, OCLC 14866297, page 9:

     Pampedun, or Pandon, was probably a place of residence from the earliest times; its sheltered situation for boats, and proximity to the ancient way over the river, protected perhaps by a dun or camp, on the height above [...] possibly gave origin to the ancient name of the place, Pampedun, from the British pant, a hollow, and dun, a fort or camp, Pant-y-dun.

2. (archeology) A structure in the Orkney or Shetland islands or in Scotland consisting of a roundhouse surrounded by a circular wall; a broch.
   • 2013, T.J. Clarkson, The Makers of Scotland: Picts, Romans, Gaels and Vikings, Edinburgh: Birlinn, →ISBN:

     Smaller than the broch was the dun, another type of stone-built 'roundhouse'.

See do.

dun

1. (nonstandard, informal) Eye dialect spelling of done: past participle of do

   Now, ya dun it!

   • 1895 May 1, S.L.N. Foote, “Correspondence”, in International Journal of Medicine and Surgery‎, volume 8, retrieved 2016–13–10, page 194:

     ...a wise old lady exclaimed, "Why Mrs. M. warn't you orful skeerd wunst when you seed a dog fight? [...] an that ere big yaller dog bit orf your baby's hand that minit; in cors he dun it, so now that settles it."

2. (nonstandard, informal) Eye dialect spelling of don't: contraction of do + not.
   • 1901, Gilbert Parker, The Right of Way, New York and London: Harper, OCLC 169519:

     Fwhere's he come from, I dun'no'. French or English, I dun'no'. But a gintleman born, I know.

Likely from the color of fish so prepared.

dun (third-person singular simple present duns, present participle dunning, simple past and past participle dunned)

1. (transitive, dated) To cure, as codfish, by laying them, after salting, in a pile in a dark place, covered with saltgrass or a similar substance.
   • 1832, James Thacher, History of Plymouth; from its first settlement in 1620, to the year 1832, Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon, OCLC 78447431, page 317:

     Dun-fish are of a superior quality for the table, and are cured in such a manner as to give them a dun or brownish color. Fish for dunning are caught early in spring, and sometimes February, at the Isle of Shoals.

See dune.

dun (plural duns)

1. A mound or small hill.

Imitative.

dun

1. (humorous) Imitating suspenseful music.
   • 2009, Carrie Tucker, I Love Geeks: The Official Handbook, Avon, Massachusetts: Adams Media, →ISBN:

     How would you deal with that power? (Dun, dun, DUN! Insert dramatic music here.)

• dun in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• DNU, und

• IPA^(key): [dũ˦]

dun

1. to eat

• 2007. The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Department of Linguistics.

From Old Norse dúnn (“down”).

• IPA^(key): /duːn/, [d̥uːˀn]

dun n (singular definite dunet, plural indefinite dun)

1. down (soft, immature feathers)

• “dun” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “dun” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog
• dun on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da

From Middle Dutch dunne, from Old Dutch *thunni, from Proto-Germanic *þunnuz. Cognates with English thin (Compare West-Flemish thinne).

• Audio

  (file)

dun (comparative dunner, superlative dunst)

1. thin, slender
2. sparse
3. (liquid) runny

• dicht, dik

• dunnen, verdunnen

dun

1. first-person singular present indicative of dunnen
2. imperative of dunnen

From de (“of”) + un (“masculine singular indefinite article”)

dun m

1. Contraction of de un. From a; of a

• dunha (feminine form)
• duns (plural form)
• dunhas (feminine plural form)

• duhn

• IPA^(key): /duːn/

Borrowed from Low German duun.

dun (comparative duner, superlative am dunsten)

1. (colloquial, chiefly Northern Germany) drunk
   • 1998, “Du (äh, Du)”, in Power, performed by Fischmob:

     Ich war dun die Nacht / Und hatte mit chemischen Drogen aus Amerika herumexperimentiert / Bis ich das Bewußtsein verlor.

     I was drunk that night / and had experimented with synthetic drugs from America / until I lost consciousness.

• dun in Duden online

dun

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary

From Proto-North Sarawak *daqun, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *dahun (compare Malay daun).

dun

1. leaf

dun

1. Nonstandard spelling of dūn.
2. Nonstandard spelling of dún.
3. Nonstandard spelling of dǔn.
4. Nonstandard spelling of dùn.

• English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

From Old Norse dúnn

dun f or m (definite singular duna or dunen, indefinite plural duner, definite plural dunene)
dun n (definite singular dunet, indefinite plural dun, definite plural duna or dunene)

1. down (soft, fine fluffy feathers)

• “dun” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “dun” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

From Old Norse dúnn

dun f (definite singular duna, indefinite plural duner, definite plural dunene)
dun n (definite singular dunet, indefinite plural dun, definite plural duna)

1. down (soft, fine fluffy feathers)

• “dun” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Proto-Germanic *dūnǭ (“sand dune”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“to smoke, fume, raise dust”); or alternatively a late borrowing from Proto-Celtic *dūnom from the same Proto-Indo-European source.

• IPA^(key): /duːn/

dūn f

1. hill, mountain

• ofdune

• English: down

From Latin donum.

• IPA^(key): /dun/

dun m (oblique plural duns, nominative singular duns, nominative plural dun)

1. (Anglo-Norman) Alternative form of don
   • circa 1150, Turoldus, La Chanson de Roland:

     E tute Espaigne tendrat par vostre dun

     And all of Spain he will hold as your gift

From Old Norse dúnn (“down”).

dun n

1. down, what grows on young birds

• dun in Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket (13th ed., online)

Borrowed from German tun and English do.

• IPA^(key): /dun/

dun (nominative plural duns)

1. deed, action, act, doing

• dunön