dun – English noun declension

English noun forms of dun

Noun: dun
Singulardun
Pluralduns

Sample Sentences

  • "The truth is, Mr. Curl, I cannot write when I am plagued about trifles; and a tiresome dun this morning put to flight every idea that I had in the world."
  • "Mr. Maynard," said the bookseller, in a solemn tone, "it is very wrong to run in debt." [1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 162–163:]
  • 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. [1889 [1712], John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull, London: Cassell & Co., →OCLC, page 71:]
  • Melancholy duns came looking for him at all hours. [1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XVIII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:]
  • ‘Frank's worried about duns,’ she said as the butler went away. [1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 102:]
  • Miss Hoppin received a dun for volume 9 1840–1 which Mr. James McConnell, (who now pays the above) is sure was paid. [1842, A.B.G., “Errata”, in Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate, volume 13, →OCLC, page 251:]

Etymology

1. From Middle English dun, donn, dunne, from Old English dunn (“dun, dingy brown, bark-colored, brownish black”), from Proto-West Germanic *duʀn, from Proto-Germanic *duznaz, *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”).
2. Alternative etymology derives the Old English word from Brythonic (compare Middle Welsh dwnn (“dark (red)”)), from Proto-Celtic *dusnos (compare Old Irish donn and Scottish Gaelic donn (“brown”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰews- (compare Old Saxon dosan (“chestnut brown”)). More at dusk. See: Old Norse Nouns 'dunna'.

Verbs referencing "dun"

English Nouns donkey.