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View synonyms for Hun

Hun

[ huhn ]

noun

  1. a member of a nomadic and warlike Asian people who devastated or controlled large parts of eastern and central Europe and who exercised their greatest power under Attila in the 5th century a.d.
  2. (often lowercase) a barbarous, destructive person; vandal.
  3. Older Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term used to refer to a German, especially a German soldier in World War I or II.


Hun

/ hʌn /

noun

  1. a member of any of several Asiatic nomadic peoples speaking Mongoloid or Turkic languages who dominated much of Asia and E Europe from before 300 bc , invading the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries a.d
  2. See German
    informal.
    (esp in World War I) a derogatory name for a German
  3. informal.
    a vandal


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Sensitive Note

The disparaging and offensive use of this term likens the Germans to the barbarous and warlike Huns of the 4th and 5th centuries. The source of the comparison was a speech by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1900, encouraging German soldiers bound for China to act toward the Chinese just like “the Huns a thousand years ago.”

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Derived Forms

  • ˈHunˌlike, adjective

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Other Words From

  • Hunlike adjective

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Word History and Origins

Origin of Hun1

before 900; 1895–1900 Hun fordef 3; singular of Huns, Old English Hūnas; cognate with Old Norse Hūnar; akin to Late Latin Hunnī

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Word History and Origins

Origin of Hun1

Old English Hūnas, from Late Latin Hūnī, from Turkish Hun-yū

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Example Sentences

Director Yoo Dong-hun and screenwriter Lee Jung-u were arrested for firebombing theaters.

Prime Minister Hun Sen had taken power in a bloody coup in July 1997.

He might have elicited a smile rather than a cringe had he gone to that reliable standby, “to the right of Attila the Hun.”

Leakhena Hun, a 22-year-old student, said she is one of few Khmers her age who are following the trial.

I always felt Attila The Hun set the clearest path for himself, what would today be called his “mission statement.”

But as year after year rolled away, Uncle Gambo would still say, "I'se a hun'erd and ten yeah ole."

You will see the permanently crippled and those that wait for death, a slow and lingering death from the Hun's poisonous gases.

The Red Cross floated over the building, but that emblem of mercy made no difference to the Hun.

The neighbors coming in to see the strange discovery, tore one of the pieces to atoms, in the true Hun and Vandal style.

In Germany hunne means giant, and the term “Hun,” meant radically anyone formidable or gigantic.

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