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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

shun.

To avoid, especially persistently; ostracize.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ʃʌn//ʃʊn/Ireland, Northern-England
  1. To avoid, especially persistently; ostracize.

    transitive
    Acrophobes shun mountaineering.
  2. To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).

    transitive
    I'll shun meeting them for as long as possible.
  3. To screen, hide.

    transitive
  4. To shove, push.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.