shun
English
Etymology
From Middle English shǒnen (“decline to do, avoid, fear”), from Old English scunian, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewdʰ- (“to cover, wrap, encase”), from *(s)kew- (“to cover, hide”); if so, cognate with Old English hȳdan (“to hide, conceal, preserve”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ʃʌn/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ʌn
Verb
shun (third-person singular simple present shuns, present participle shunning, simple past and past participle shunned)
- (transitive) To avoid, especially persistently.
- Acrophobes shun mountaineering.
- 2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
- British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.
- (transitive) To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).
- (transitive) To screen, hide.
- (transitive) To shove, push.
Translations
to avoid
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to escape
to screen, hide
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
References
- shun in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- shun in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
Mandarin
Usage notes
- 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.
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