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Glite Dictionary
🟫 A dull color 🐴 A brownish horse 🌫️ Grayish-brown 💰 To demand payment 🧑‍💼 A debt collector 🍂 To turn brownish 🧂 To salt meat
to dun

to dun

8.6
To make something a dull brown-grey color
  • verb
  • /dʌn/
translation icon : teñir de pardo
  • After the rain, the rocks dun beautifully, adding a muted charm to the landscape.

Examples

  • The once vibrant mural will gradually dun if it is not protected from the harsh sunlight.

  • As they walked along the paths under the trees with bare black branches and one or two leaves, she picked up a leaf and held it out for him to see, dun yellow.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • The artist decided to dun the canvas to achieve a subtle background color.

Synonyms

to brown
vsto dun
50 2.0

To make something a darker color by heat, for example when cooking or in the sun

is a dull blend of warm and neutral tones not a heat caused change
to gray
vsto dun
  • US
12 1.8

To become pale or whitish, often because of age

is a dull blend of warm and neutral tones rather than a pure tone

Antonyms

to brighten
27 2.7

To make a place or thing look more cheerful by adding color

Compounds

dun-colored
1 6.9

A dull greyish-brown color like the fur of some horses

How Dark

to blacken
19 3.4
to darken
63 3.3
to dun
8.6
to stain
113 3.2
to tint
24 3.6

Surface Forms

dun infinitive
dunned past
dunned past participle
dunning present participle
duns third person singular

Etymology

Dun as a verb meaning to make something a dull brown comes from the same old root dunn meaning 'dark' or 'brown', so to dun something is simply to make it darker or browner, like saying 'darken'.