• dun •
Pronunciation: dên • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective, noun
Meaning: 1. Dull brownish gray, roughly, the color of a donkey. 2. Dull, drab.
Notes: This adjective may be used as a noun meaning "a dun horse" or, in Newfoundland, a spoiled preserved codfish (dunfish). The use of this word as a verb meaning "to make a dun color", escaped usage in late Old English, leaving it a complete lexical orphan.
In Play: The first sense of the word we may encounter in expressions like this: "Horace Rumpole arrived in court wearing a dun overcoat with large black buttons." The broader, second sense may be found in utterances like this: "I see discord between Nada Farthingsworth's dun thinking on this matter and her decisive actions."
Word History: Today's Good Word in Old English ended on a double N, dunn. It was probably borrowed from some Celtic word, which became today's Scots Gaelic donn "brown", Welsh dwn "brown" (poetic), and Irish donn "brown". This would make it a grandchild of some PIE word donnos, originally dusnos "dark". Latin could have made such a word into its fuscus "dark, swarthy, tawny", source of English fuscous "dark or dull red". We find more evidence in Sanskrit dhusarah "dust-colored, Old Icelandic dunsna, Modern Icelandic dynja "thud", and English dusk. That could be it in English donkey, influenced by the second syllable in monkey. (Now a tip of our hats to David Myer, long-time subscriber and active Agoran. for today's rather trepid and reclusive Good Word.)
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