shun

From Middle English schonen (“to decline to do, avoid, fear”), from Old English sċunian (“to shun, fear, avoid”), of uncertain origin, though probably ultimately connected to the root Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover, conceal”); see that entry for more discussion.

Compare hide, shy, and Sanskrit स्कुनाति (skunāti, “to cover”).

• IPA^(key): /ʃʌn/

  • Audio (US):

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• (Northern England, Ireland) IPA^(key): /ʃʊn/
• Rhymes: -ʌn

shun (third-person singular simple present shuns, present participle shunning, simple past and past participle shunned)

2. (transitive) To avoid, especially persistently; ostracize.

   Acrophobes shun mountaineering.

   • 2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

     British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.

4. (transitive) To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).

   I'll shun meeting them for as long as possible.

6. (transitive) To screen, hide.
8. (transitive) To shove, push.

• “shun”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “shun”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Shun”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.

• Huns, USNH, huns

shun

1. Rōmaji transcription of しゅん

shun

1. nonstandard spelling of shǔn
2. nonstandard spelling of shùn

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.