Meanings
- A city in Siskiyou County, California, United States.
- A habitational surname from Scots.
Origin
- Old WelshDin Maur“great fort”
- Scottish Gaelicdùn“fort, fortress”
- Scotsmuir“moor”
- EnglishDunsmuir
From Old English personal name *Dynn, genitive case *Dynnes + Scots muir (“moor”). Alternatively from either: # Scottish Gaelic dùn (“fort, fortress”) + muir (“sea, ocean”), 'the fort by the sea'. # Old Welsh Din Maur (“great fort”). The collative s in the proposed Celtic sources could come via Scots on analogy with words such as Dunsmore or Dunston, in which cases the -s is a remnant of a genitive case ending. The town in California is named after San Francisco businessman Alexander Dunsmuir.
More words from Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Old Welsh
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Dunsmuir. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Dunsmuir
“Dunsmuir.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Dunsmuir. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Dunsmuir,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Dunsmuir.
Source: Dunsmuir on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.