Dun means greyish brown, said of a horse. A dun mare, dun coloured, a dun pony.
It is one of the oldest colour words in English and it survives mainly in describing horses, where dun means a sandy body with a black mane, tail and dorsal stripe — the stripe is what distinguishes a true dun from a plain buckskin. Note that a dun is also a demand for payment, which is a separate word.
1adjectivedunGreyish brown, said of a horse.
“The farmer rode a dun mare with a black mane and tail.”
dun is a colour.
Old English dunn means dingy brown, from a Germanic root about brown and yellow. Dusk may be related.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰewh₂- — to smoke, raise dust
Proto-Germanic
*dusnaz
Proto-West Germanic
*duʀn
Old English
dunn — dun, dingy brown, bark-colored, brownish black
Middle English
dun
English, today
dun
Built from
From Middle English dun, donn, dunne, from Old English dunn (“dun, dingy brown, bark-colored, brownish black”), from Proto-West Germanic duʀn, from Proto-Germanic dusnaz, dusnaz (“brown, yellow”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰewh₂- (“to smoke, raise dust”). Cognate with Old Saxon dun (“brown, dark”), Old High German tusin (“ash-gray, dull brown, pale yellow, dark”), Old Norse dunna (“female mallard; duck”). Alternative etymology derives the Old English word from cel-bry (compare wlm dwnn (“dark (red)”)), from Proto-Celtic dusnos (compare Old Irish donn and Scottish Gaelic donn (“brown”)), from Proto-Indo-European dʰews- (compare Old Saxon dosan (“chestnut brown”)). More at dusk.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA