dune
/djuːn/
dune noun: a ridge or hill of sand piled up by currents of wind or water.

Noun
dune (plural dunes)
- A ridge or hill of sand piled up by currents of wind or water.
- Heavy line segments (lengthened for clarity) indicate locations of deep-sea dunes.1975, Texas A & M University. College of Geosciences, Contributions in Oceanography
- 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...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
- Synonyms:
- sand dune, sand-dune
dune meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada
dune in Hindi
- a ridge or hill of sand piled up by the wind
- टिब्बा ṭibbā, बालुकूट bālukūṭ
dune in Tamil
- மணற்குன்று
dune in Malayalam
- mound, bank, hillock
- പുളിനം, മൺകൂന, മണൽക്കൂന, മണൽക്കുന്ന്, മണൽക്കൂമ്പാരം, കൊവ്വൽ
dune in Kannada
- ಮರಳುದಿನ್ನೆ, ಗುಡ್ಡ
More languagesFewer languages
- dune in Gujarati
- ઢૂવો ḍhūvo
- dune in Nepali
- ड्युन
- dune in Pashto
- برهانه borhāná
- dune in Arabic
- كَثِيب kaṯīb, غُرْد ḡurd
- dune in Malay
- gumuk
- dune in Indonesian
- gumuk
- dune in Persian
- تلماسه talmâse, ماهور mâhur
- dune in Thai
- เนินทราย nəən-saai
- dune in Vietnamese
- đụn cát, cồn cát
Examples of dune in a sentence
- The Thar desert in Rajasthan is home to two of the seven known dune cricket species.
- I’ve ridden tactical combat helicopters missions, skimming the desert floor and banking hard around sand dunes.
- Huge dunes, called “whaleheads” by locals, developed on Hatteras during this time and swept across the island.
Synonyms of dune
- sand dune
- sand-dune
Antonyms
Forms of dune
| plural | dunes |
|---|
Origin of dune
Partly from a dialectal form of down; and partly from Dutch duin (from Middle Dutch dune) or from Middle Low German dûne; all ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *dūn, *dūnā, of uncertain origin; possibly from Proto-Celtic *dūnom (“stronghold, rampart”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰuHnom (“enclosure”), from *dʰewh₂- (“to finish, come full circle”). Doublet of down (which see).
Words formed from dune
Phrases with dune
Words that rhyme with dune
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- croon
- blue moon
- boon
- monsoon
- noon
- pontoon
- raccoon
- tribune
- attune
- dragoon
- hoon
- immune
- picayune
- platoon
- soon
- swoon
- tycoon
- afternoon
- baboon
- commune
- doubloon
- harpoon
- jejune
- pantaloon
- picaroon
- shalloon
- bassoon
- buffoon
- cocoon
- dabloon
- entune
- gadroon
- hewn
- impugn
- jargoon
- june
- lacune
- last chance saloon
- lune
- macaroon
- man in the moon
- maroon
- poon
- puccoon
- ratoon
- scone
- toon
- trial balloon
Questions about dune
- What does dune mean?
- Dune means a ridge or hill of sand piled up by currents of wind or water.
- What is dune in Hindi?
- Dune in Hindi is टिब्बा (ṭibbā), बालुकूट (bālukūṭ). See Dune meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is dune?
- Dune is a noun.
- How do you pronounce dune?
- Dune is pronounced /djuːn/.
- What is the plural of dune?
- The plural of dune is dunes.
Words near dune in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dune (page history and authors); dune (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dune (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dune (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dune (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-dune.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dune.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dune. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
