dune

 

Partly from a dialectal form of down; and partly from French dune (from Old French dune), or from Middle Dutch dūne (modern Dutch duin), or from Middle Low German dûne; all ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *dūn, *dūnā, probably from Proto-Celtic *dūnom (“stronghold, rampart”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰuHnom (“enclosure”), from *dʰewh₂- (“to finish, come full circle”). Doublet of down (which see). (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /djuːn/, /dʒuːn/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

  • Homophone: June (with /dʒ/)
• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /dun/, (sometimes) /djun/
• (Wales, Ottawa Valley) IPA^(key): /dɪu̯n/
• Rhymes: -uːn

dune (plural dunes)

1. (geomorphology) A ridge or hill of sand piled up by currents of wind or water.
   • 1975, Texas A & M University. College of Geosciences, Contributions in Oceanography:

     Heavy line segments (lengthened for clarity) indicate locations of deep-sea dunes.

   • 2021 February 23, Etienne Guyon, Jose Bico, Etienne Reyssat, Benoit Roman, Hidden Wonders: The Subtle Dialogue Between Physics and Elegance, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 257:

     In the early 2000s, space probes [confirmed Mars as] having dunes […] Their shapes are identical to their Saharan cousins', but they are ten times bigger. In contrast, underwater dunes are a hundred times smaller than their counterparts on solid ground. This universality of dunes is a blessing for physicists: their comparative study confirmed the models that describe the formation of dunes on Earth.

• sand dune, sand-dune

• dyke, dike

• duned

• nude, undé

Inherited from Middle French dune, from Old French dune, from Middle Dutch dūne (modern Dutch duin), from Old Dutch dūn, dūno, from Proto-West Germanic *dūnā (“hill”), of uncertain origin. More at Proto-West Germanic *dūnā.

• IPA^(key): /dyn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -yn

dune f (plural dunes)

1. dune

• → Catalan: duna
• → Portuguese: duna

• “dune”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

dune f (plural dunis)

1. dune

• IPA^(key): /ˈdu.ne/
• Rhymes: -une
• Hyphenation: dù‧ne

dune f pl

1. plural of duna

• nude

dune

1. Alternative form of dynne

dūne

1. inflection of dūn:
   1. accusative/genitive/dative singular
   2. nominative/accusative plural

dune (Cyrillic spelling дуне)

1. third-person singular present of dunuti