shun
/ʃʌn/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Ireland/ʃʊn/
shun verb: to avoid, especially persistently; ostracize.
Verb
shun (third-person singular simple present shuns, present participle shunning, simple past and past participle shunned)
- To avoid, especially persistently; ostracize.
- Acrophobes shun mountaineering.
- 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.2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
- Synonyms:
- blacklist
- To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).
- I'll shun meeting them for as long as possible.
- To screen, hide.
- To shove, push.
shun meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
shun in Tamil
- வெறுத்துத் தள்ளு
shun in Urdu
- جان بچانا, کھچنا, پناہ مانگنا, دور دور رہنا, کنی کترانا, بچنا
shun in Malayalam
- ഒഴിവാക്കുക, അകന്നു നിൽക്കുക
shun in Kannada
- ದೂರವಿಡು, ಸೇರದಿರು, ತಪ್ಪಿಸು, ದೂರ ಉಳಿ, ಗೊಡವಿಗೆ ಹೋಗದಿರು, ಜತೆಗೆ ಸೇರದಿರು
More languagesFewer languages
- shun in Sanskrit
- जहाति jáhāti, त्यजति tyájati, गुप् gup, त्यज् tyaj
- shun in Thai
- กีดกัน
Examples of shun in a sentence
- Islam has traditionally been husstuss-positive but it has always shunned agps as all sensible belief systems should.
- When it wasn't, those who kept their clothes on were shunned by the other flesh-worshipping orgygoers.
- He was shunned by the entire community, and died shortly after, a broken bird.
Synonyms of shun
Forms of shun
| third-person singular present | shuns |
|---|---|
| present participle | shunning |
| past participle | shunned |
| past | shunned |
Origin of 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 Proto-Indo-European root *(s)kewH- (“to cover, conceal”) via Proto-Germanic *skunōną; see that entry for more discussion. Compare hide, shy, and Sanskrit स्कुनाति (skunāti, “to cover”).
Words formed from shun
Words that rhyme with shun
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- rerun
- stun
- nun
- 'un
- Gunn
- jump the gun
- none
- outrun
- overdone
- begun
- dun
- fun
- hon
- pun
- speedrun
- thon
- undone
- unspun
- verdun
- winter sun
- 1
- 101
- 26+6=1
- cun
- dun dun dun
- everyone
- hard-won
- have one's mind about one
- hot cross bun
- marble run
- misdone
- mun
- Munn
- old one
- one hundred and one
- one thousand and one
- organ gun
- outdone
- outgun
- over and done
- quaker gun
- redone
- respun
- rewon
- snatch and run
- spun
- steam gun
- temperature gun
Questions about shun
- What does shun mean?
- Shun means to avoid, especially persistently; ostracize.
- What is shun in Tamil?
- Shun in Tamil is வெறுத்துத் தள்ளு. See Shun meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is shun?
- Shun is a verb.
- How do you pronounce shun?
- Shun is pronounced /ʃʌn/.
- What is the past tense of shun?
- The past tense of shun is shunned.
Words near shun in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shun (page history and authors); shun (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shun (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shun (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shun (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); गुप् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). 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-us-shun.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shun.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shun. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.