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tun

Pronunciation: /tuːn/

“tun” is a German word. Its 10 meanings in English:

verb

  1. to do (to perform or execute an action)
  2. to do (harm or good, but negative by default)
  3. to pretend, to play-act
  4. to put, to place, to add (especially of smaller objects or ingredients)
  5. to work, to function
  6. to make a difference; to be different
  7. to happen, to be going on (as opposed to a lack of activity)
  8. Used with the preceding infinitive of another verb that has been fronted to the first position, typically for strong emphasis or contrast with another verb
  9. Used with the following infinitive of another verb, without fronting, to convey continuousness or general emphasis on an action
  10. Used in the past subjunctive with the infinitive of another verb to form the conditional tense (instead of standard würde)

Etymology

From Middle High German tuon, from Old High German tuon, from Proto-West Germanic *dōn, from Proto-Germanic *dōną, derived from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, set, place”). Cognate with English do.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.