Danu

D2A1N1U1

noun

An ethnic group of Myanmar.

OriginBurmese ဓနု →
UncommonScrabble 5
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Meanings

Danu1

nounDanu pl (plural only)
  1. pluralplural onlyAn ethnic group of Myanmar.

    Everywhere the Danu wears the turban and jacket of the Burman, but in most cases he prefers the Shan trousers to the Burmese loin-cloth.

    1899, James George Scott, John Percy Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, Volume 1, Part 1, page 563
proper noun
  1. The language spoken by the Danu people, considered by the Burmese government to be a dialect of the Intha-Danu language.

Danu2

proper noun
  1. Irishhuman sciencesA hypothesised goddess of Irish mythology.

    1987, Peter Alderson Smith, W. B. Yeats and the Tribes of Danu: Three Views of Ireland's Fairies, C. Smythe, page 52, She may be the same as Danu, or she may be the same as the Morrigu.

    2 more examples

    This [battle] appears in Celtic history as that in which the Tuatha dè Danann, the tribes of the goddess Danu fought and conquered the Fir Bolg on Midsummer's Day.

    1897, The Westminster Review, Volume 148: July-December 1897, page 17

    The old poets thought that the tribes of the goddess Danu were of a perfect beauty, and the creators of beautiful people and beautiful arts.

    1897, W. B. Yeats, “The Tribes of Danu”, in The New Review, Volume 17: July-December 1897, William Heinemann, page 550

Danu3

proper noun
  1. HinduismlifestyleA Hindu primordial goddess who had numerous children.

Origin

Danu · noun, proper noun

  1. Burmeseဓနု
  2. EnglishDanu

Borrowed from Burmese ဓနု (dha.nu.).

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Danu · proper noun

Learned borrowing from Old Irish, from a reconstructed nominative form of the genitive Danann (also spelled Donand or Danand). In particular, Danann is attested in the term Tuatha Dé Danann, which is typically translated "tribe of Danu" but used as the collective name for certain Irish gods (or, more prosaically, the people of a particular wave of immigration to Ireland, in the traditional history). The etymology is controversial and has been debated since the 19th century. Some scholars identify Danu with the goddess Anu, perhaps as a contraction of día Anu ("goddess Anu").

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Danu · proper noun

  1. Sanskritदनु
  2. EnglishDanu

Borrowed from Sanskrit दनु (danu).

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Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

duanDuna
Cite this entry
APA

Danu. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Danu

MLA

“Danu.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Danu. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Danu,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Danu.

Source: Danu on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.