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rune

Pronunciation: /ɹuːn/

The English word “rune” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A letter, or character, used in the written language of various ancient Germanic peoples, especially the Scandinavians and the Anglo-Saxons.
  2. A letter from any visually similar script, such as Hungarian runes (the Old Hungarian script) or Turkic runes (the Old Turkic script).
  3. A Finnic or Scandinavian epic poem, or a division of one, especially a division of the Kalevala.
  4. A letter or mark used as a mystical or magic symbol.
  5. A verse or song, especially one with mystical or mysterious overtones; a spell or an incantation.
  6. A Unicode code point.

verb

  1. To compose or perform poetry or songs.

Etymology

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. ; Finnic epic poem ; "code point"

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