tun
/tʌn/noun, verb
tun is spelled T-U-N: 3 letters. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 30,017th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, tun means “A large cask; an oblong vessel bulging in the middle, like a pipe or puncheon, and girt with hoops; a wine cask. (See a diagram comparing cask sizes.)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of tun is tuns or tunob.
How many letters and syllables are in tun?
| Letters | 3: T-U-N |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 30,017th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is tun?
Tun appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 30,017th 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 tun?
- UK /tʌn/
- UK /tʊn/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-tun.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with tun
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: ton, tonne (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with tun?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tun from its last stressed vowel (/ʌn/, British pronunciation):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: nut.
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 tun
- tuns plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- tunning participle, present
- tunned participle, past
- tunob plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tun mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A large cask; an oblong vessel bulging in the middle, like a pipe or puncheon, and girt with hoops; a wine cask. (See a diagram comparing cask sizes.)
- 2
A fermenting vat.
- 3
A traditional unit of liquid measure (from the volume of such a cask) equal to 252 wine gallons or 2 pipes.
- 4
Synonym of long ton: a unit of mass equal to 2240 pounds, 20 hundredweights of 112 pounds avoirdupois each.
- 5
Synonym of ton: any extremely or excessively large amount.
- 6
archaicderogatorySynonym of drunkard: a person who drinks excessively.
- 7
Any shell belonging to Tonna and allied genera.
- 8
The cryptobiotic state of a tardigrade, when its metabolism is temporarily suspended.
- 9
A part of the ancient Maya Long Count Calendar system which corresponds to 18 winal cycles or 360 days.
- 10
A respectful term of address to royalties and certain award recipients
verb
- 1
To put into tuns, or casks.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tun in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a large, oblong cask:
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 tun come from?
From Middle English tunne, tonne (“cask, barrel”), from Old English tunne (“tun, cask, barrel”), from Proto-Germanic *tunnǭ, *tunnō (“tun, barrel, cask”), from Latin tunna, probably of Gaulish origin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).