Other forms: runes
A rune is a letter of an old Germanic alphabet, cut into wood or stone. Carve a rune, runes on the stone, read the runes.
The futhark alphabets were used across northern Europe from about the second century, and their angular shapes exist because they were cut rather than written. Runes were an ordinary writing system that later acquired a magical reputation. Read the runes means to work out what is really going on, usually in politics. Note runic, and that Tolkien used real runes in his books, which is why so many people can recognise them.
1nounruneA letter of an old Germanic alphabet.
“The old stone was carved with runes that nobody in the village could read.”
rune is a letter.
Old Norse run meant a secret or a mystery as well as a letter. Writing was itself mysterious to most people, and the word for the letter and the word for the secret were the same from the beginning.
Old Norse
rún
English, today
rune
Borrowed from Old Norse rún. Borrowed from Old Norse rún, which is from Proto-Germanic rūnō (“letter, literature, secret”), which is borrowed either from Proto-Celtic rūnā or from the same source as it; compare Dutch rune, German Rune, Raune, Danish rune and Swedish runa. Compare roun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA