dun

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   of a dull greyish brown to brownish grey color

   The dun and dreary prairie.

2. 2
   noun

   a color or pigment varying around a light grey-brown color

   They wore dun.

3. 3
   verb

   cure by salting

   Dun codfish.

4. 4
   verb

   persistently ask for overdue payment

   The grocer dunned their customers every day by telephone.

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”). 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 (“...

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