Hun
A surname from Khmer.
Proper noun
- A surname from Khmer.
Origin
Etymology tree Khmer ហ៊ុន (hun)bor. English Hun Borrowed from Khmer ហ៊ុន (hun).
Forms
Noun
- A member of a nomadic tribe (the Huns) who invaded Europe in the fourth century from Central Asia.
- A vandal, a barbarian, an uncivilized destructive person.
- A German.
- Doubtless the first German band to return to England will be composed of the most gentle peace and beer-loving Huns that ever visited our favoured shores. - 1919, Gerald Featherstone Knight, Brother Bosch: An Airman's...
- A Protestant.
- A Rangers Football Club supporter; an Orangeman.
Synonyms: Orangeman
Origin
From Old English Hūnas, Hūne (both plural), from Late Latin Hunni, from Koine Greek Οὗννοι (Hoûnnoi), borrowed through Middle Iranian. Cognate with Old Norse húnir, Old High German Hunni. See also etymology of Xiongnu. Compare Sogdian [script needed] (xwn), Sanskrit हूण (hūṇa), and 匈奴 (OC *hoŋ-nâ) (c. 318 BCE) > *hɨoŋ-nɑ (Eastern Han), which Schuessler (2014:264) proposes to be transcription of foreign *Hŏna ~ Hŭna. More at Huns. As a derogatory term for Germans popularized by Rudyard Kipling, reacting to Germany's proposal that the Royal Navy be used to collect debts from Venezuela.