Sun

How to spell sun

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sun

What does sun mean?

1. nounThe star at the centre of the solar system, or the light and warmth it gives.
2. verbTo expose oneself or something to the warmth and light of the sun.

Sun in a sentence

• noun

  The sun rose over the hills just after six o'clock.

• verb

  The cat liked to sun itself on the warm windowsill.

• noun

  She pulled the blinds to keep the afternoon sun off her screen.

• verb

  Tourists came to sun themselves on the wide sandy beach.

Where does sun come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is one of the oldest words in English, descending directly from the Old English 'sunne', the everyday name for the star at the centre of our sky. It traces back to a Proto-Germanic form 'sunnon', which is why related words appear across the family: Dutch has 'zon' and German has 'Sonne'. Behind all of these lies a Proto-Indo-European root meaning the bright burning body of the day, a root that also fed the Latin 'sol' (seen in 'solar') and the Greek 'helios' (seen in 'helium'). Because it has been spoken in English continuously for well over a thousand years, the spelling stayed short and plain, with no silent letters. Its only real trap for an adult writer is its sound-alike 'son', the male child, which it has never been related to in meaning.

How the word is built

• sun (single root; native Old English noun, no affixes)

Words that sound like sun

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• son: A person's male child.