dune
/djuːn/noun
dune is spelled D-U-N-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,101st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, dune means “A ridge or hill of sand piled up by currents of wind or water” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of dune is dunes.
How many letters and syllables are in dune?
| Letters | 4: D-U-N-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words; the 20,101st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is dune?
Dune appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,101st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce dune?
- /djuːn/
- /d͡ʒuːn/
- /dun/
Dune has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-dune.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with dune?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as dune.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: nude.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of dune
- dunes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does dune mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A ridge or hill of sand piled up by currents of wind or water.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Dune in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a ridge or hill of sand piled up by the wind:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does dune come from?
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).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).