First recorded before 950; Middle English shunen, Old English scunian “to avoid, fear”
If you purposely stay away from someone, you shun that person. A sensitive baker may ask why you are shunning her cookies. Although the verb shun means to deliberately avoid anything, it has a specific meaning in certain groups and communities. In this case, it means to ostracize or expel from that group or community. The Amish, for example, may shun members of their order who repeatedly ignore the beliefs and rules of Amish society. The word may also be used in more casual group settings. After many attempts at being polite, you and your friends began to shun the obnoxious classmate who never let you get a word in edgewise.
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Another Japanese skater, Shun Sato, was third on 288.54.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 28, 2026
Ping Shun, another sanctioned vessel owned by a company based in Shandong in China which normally exports to that country, loaded 600,000 barrels of oil from Kharg and is also in the Gulf of Oman.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 11, 2026
The completely unfancied Shaidorov kept his nerve as his rivals tumbled, moving up from fifth to take his country's first figure skating gold, with Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato completing the podium.
From Barron's • Feb. 14, 2026
Tokyo silver medallist Scott and Dean will hope to make the Paris final, while Tokyo champion Wang Shun of China is back.
From BBC • Jul. 24, 2024
I fear, Shun, faith — look ye, I fear he is fled from some tyrant Master, which is Capt. Draper’s Belief.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
