tun
noun
a large cask for holding liquids, especially wine, ale, or beer.
tun
1 American
[tuhn]
/ tʌn /
noun
-
tuns
plural
-
a large cask for holding liquids, especially wine, ale, or beer.
-
a measure of liquid capacity, usually equivalent to 252 wine gallons.
verb (used with object)
tunned,
tunning
Tun.
2
American
abbreviation
tun
British
/ tʌn /
noun
-
a large beer cask
-
a measure of capacity, usually equal to 252 wine gallons
-
a cask used during the manufacture of beer
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tun
First recorded before 900; Middle English noun tunne, Old English; cognate with Dutch ton, German Tonne (from Low German ), Old Norse tunna; verb from the noun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The tardigrade is then said to be in the "tun state."
From Salon ● Apr. 20, 2025
It may tun out to be a climactic final act.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 22, 2023
Using his typical mix of nasty sliders and biting curveball with a located fastball to keep hitters honest, he didn’t get a tun of help from his defense, which committed two errors.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 26, 2022
Besides this product the remains of five hogsheads of fish will produce one tun of pumice or fish guano, the best fertilizer known, and worth by itself $20 per tun.”
From Scientific American ● Jan. 5, 2019
“It’s me, tun, Raymie. Raymie Clarke. I visited Isabelle a couple of days ago, and I was going to do a good deed?”
From "Raymie Nightingale" by Kate DiCamillo
“Those dunks Jalen had, just playing defense, locking up and spreading out. It tuns the momentum in our favor,” said Amen Thompson, who finished with 16 points of the bench for Houston.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 8, 2024
Maryland’s own cats are back, and offering more funkadelic, groovy tuns for either meditation or mellow dancing.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 15, 2017
Giant arms rotate in the mixture to break down the bubbles and stop the froth rising to the hatches, but some is still seeping out from a couple of the wash tuns.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 4, 2010
The jury is out on whether the oaken tuns at the Newark brewery imparted any significant flavor to their contents.
From Washington Post
Emanuel, the oldest, today* tuns the dry-cleaning plant.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
Once when dee wuz 'prominadin-all' down we all's een o' de hall, as he tunned her somebody step on her dress an' to' it.
From Unc' Edinburg A Plantation Echo by Thomas Nelson Page
Well, de river wuz jes natchelly b'ilin', an' hit soun' like a mill-dam roarin' by; an' when we got dyah Marse George tunned to me an' tell me he reckon I better go back.
From Unc' Edinburg A Plantation Echo by Thomas Nelson Page
When it is thus boiled, it must be poured out into a Cooler, or open vessel, before it be tunned in the Barrel; but the Bung-hole must be left open, that it may have vent.
From The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Anne MacDonell
They were worked in the same manner, and tunned and kept in the same cellar; a proof that the water only could be the cause of the difference.
From The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families by Mary Eaton
When it is tunned up, hang in it a bag containing five handfuls of Clove-gilly-flowers, and sufficient quantity of the spices above.
From The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Anne MacDonell
But during my second year, my friend Locke Ndzamela, Healdtown’s champion hurdler, encouraged me to take up a new sport: long-distance tunning.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
How they pull, and there's a stiff sea tunning too.
From Arthur O'Leary His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands by Charles James Lever
But he soon loved the "tunning sing," and would stand watching it with a grave face, till some funny little idea found vent in still funnier words or caresses.
From Louisa May Alcott : Her Life, Letters, and Journals by Louisa May Alcott
The beer that is used at noblemen’s tables in their fixed and standing houses is commonly a year old, or peradventure of two years’ tunning or more; but this is not general.
From Elizabethan England From 'A Description of England,' by William Harrison by William Harrison
Doesn't the beer want tunning, and thou'rt leesing there o' thy haunches; at thy whys and thy wise speeches.
From Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 by John Roby
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.
