Rung

How to spell rung

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rung

What does rung mean?

1. nounOne of the horizontal bars or steps between the uprights of a ladder; also a level in a hierarchy.
2. verbThe past participle of ring: to have produced a clear sound from a bell or telephone.

Rung in a sentence

• noun

  The bottom rung of the ladder had rotted through.

• verb

  The church bells had rung long before the ceremony began.

• noun

  A promotion moved her up another rung of the company.

• verb

  The alarm had rung twice before anyone woke up.

Where does rung come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The ladder sense of rung descends directly from the Old English word hrung, which meant a rod, bar, or crossbar, and it has Germanic cousins such as the Dutch rong and the German Runge, both naming the stout wooden stakes or crosspieces used in carts and frames. From that literal crossbar the meaning narrowed over the centuries to the horizontal steps fixed between the uprights of a ladder, and figuratively to a level on any ladder of advancement, as in a rung on the career ladder. Confusingly, the identical spelling also serves as the past participle of the verb ring, as in a bell that has rung; this verbal rung comes from a separate Old English source, hringan, meaning to sound or to give out a clear tone. The two words simply collided in modern spelling. The main trap for writers is the near-twin wrung, the past tense of wring (to twist or squeeze), which sounds exactly the same but carries a silent w and an entirely different meaning.

How the word is built

• rung (from Old English hrung: rod, crossbar), a single, unanalysable root with no prefix or suffix