dune

See also: dune-, duŋe, Düne, and dűne

English

Dunes in Namibia

Etymology

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?)

Pronunciation

• (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

Noun

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.

Synonyms

• sand dune, sand-dune

Antonyms

• dyke, dike

Derived terms

• antidune
• dunal
• dune buggy
• dune coon
• dune cricket
• dunefield
• dunefoot
• duneland
• duneless
• dunelet
• dunelike
• dunesand
• dunescape
• dunetop
• Duneverse
• duney
• duny
• foredune
• interdune
• Pajaro Dunes
• palaeodune
• paleodune
• river dune

 

Related terms

• duned

Translations

a ridge or hill of sand piled up by the wind

• Albanian: dunë (sq) f
• Arabic: كَثِيب m (kaṯīb), غُرْد m (ḡurd)
• Armenian: դյուն (dyun), ավազաթումբ (hy) (avazatʻumb)
• Azerbaijani: barxan, dyun
• Basque: duna (eu)
• Belarusian: дзю́на f (dzjúna), барха́н m (barxán)
• Bulgarian: дю́на f (djúna)
• Catalan: duna (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 沙丘 (saa¹ jau¹)

  Mandarin: 沙丘 (zh) (shāqiū)

• Czech: duna (cs) f
• Danish: klit (da) c
• Dutch: duin (nl) f
• Esperanto: duno (eo)
• Estonian: luide, düün, tuiskliivahang
• Faroese: sandheyggjur m, sandfonn f
• Finnish: dyyni (fi)
• French: dune (fr) f
• Galician: duna (gl) f
• Georgian: დიუნა (diuna)
• German: Düne (de) f, Sanddüne (de) f
• Greek: αμμόλοφος (el) m (ammólofos), θίνα (el) f (thína)
• Gujarati: ઢૂવો m (ḍhūvo)
• Hindi: टिब्बा (hi) (ṭibbā), बालुकूट (bālukūṭ)
• Hungarian: dűne (hu), bucka (hu)
• Icelandic: sandhóll m
• Ido: duno (io)
• Indonesian: gumuk (id)
• Irish: dumhach (ga) f
• Italian: duna (it) f
• Japanese: 砂丘 (ja) (さきゅう, sakyū)
• Kazakh: барқан (barqan), дөң (döñ), құм төбе (qūm töbe)
• Khmer: ខ្សាច់នារ (khsac niə), ផ្នូក (phnouk), ផ្នូរខ្សាច់ (phnou khsac)
• Korean: 둔(屯) (ko) (dun), 둔덕 (ko) (dundeok), 둔치 (dunchi), 모래톱 (moraetop), 사구(砂丘) (ko) (sagu)
• Kyrgyz: бархан (barhan)
• Lao: ເນີນຊາຍ (nœ̄n sāi), ແຊນຫາດ (sǣn hāt)
• Latvian: kāpa (lv) f
• Lithuanian: kopa (lt) f
• Macedonian: дина f (dina)
• Malay: gumuk
• Maori: taipū, tāhuahua (plural: refers to dunes)
• Mongolian: манх (mn) (manx), манхан (mn) (manxan)
• Norman: mielle f
• Norwegian: dyne (no)
• Pannonian Rusyn: дина f (dina)
• Pashto: برهانه f (borhāná)
• Persian: تلماسه (talmâse), ماهور (fa) (mâhur)
• Plautdietsch: Sauntdien f
• Polish: wydma (pl), diuna (pl) f
• Portuguese: duna (pt) f
• Romanian: dună (ro) f
• Russian: дю́на (ru) f (djúna), барха́н (ru) m (barxán)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ди́не f pl

  Latin: díne (sh) f pl

• Slovak: duna f
• Slovene: sipina (sl) f
• Spanish: duna (es) f, médano (es) m
• Swahili: tuta la mchanga
• Swedish: dyn (sv) c
• Tajik: хомаи рег (xoma-yi reg), моҳур (mohur)
• Thai: เนินทราย (nəən-saai)
• Tibetan: བྱེ་མའི་རི (bye ma'i ri, literally “mountain of sand”), བྱེ་རི (bye ri) (abbr. of བྱེ་མའི་རི), བྱེ་ཕུང (bye phung, literally “sand pile”)
• Turkish: kumul (tr)
• Turkmen: aňňat (tk)
• Ukrainian: дю́на (uk) f (djúna), барха́н (uk) m (barxán)
• Uyghur: بارخان (barxan), قۇم بارخىنى (qum barxini)
• Uzbek: barxan (uz), qumtepa (uz)
• Vietnamese: đụn cát, cồn cát

Anagrams

• nude, undé

French

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dyn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -yn

Noun

dune f (plural dunes)

1. dune

Descendants

• → Catalan: duna
• → Portuguese: duna

Further reading

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

Friulian

Noun

dune f (plural dunis)

1. dune

Italian

Pronunciation

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

Noun

dune f pl

1. plural of duna

Anagrams

• nude

Middle English

Noun

dune

1. Alternative form of dynne

Old English

Noun

dūne

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

Serbo-Croatian

Verb

dune (Cyrillic spelling дуне)

1. third-person singular present of dunuti