sun

1. The star that is closest to the Earth.

   And the cite hath no nede of the ſunne nether of the mone to lyghten hit. For the bꝛynghtnes off God dyd light hitt: and the lambe was the light off hit.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Revelacion off Sanct Jhon the Devine xxj:[23], folio cccxlij, recto

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   "I suppose I may have leave to do that!" Yes, she could do that, he said, but there was no road to that place; it lay east of the sun and west of the moon, and she could never find her way there.

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 233

   'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   The ships would leave Europe in April, when there was a good easterly wind. Trans-Atlantic mariners wanted the wind dead on the stern, so they could run with it, sticking to the same latitude—a method called easting and westing. Columbus, Cabot, and many others had done this. Until the eighteenth century, there was no reliable way to measure longitude, which helps explain why so many could make landfalls from the Bahamas to Newfoundland and believe they were near Asia. Latitude could be fixed by the relationship to the North Star or the sun, one of the few things known in the sixteenth century about celestial navigation. Westing ships out of Bristol reached the Labrador coast and dropped down to Newfoundland. Bretons went straight to the Grand Bank and St. John's.

   1997, Mark Kurlansky, “Chapter 4: 1620: The Rock and the Cod”, in Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, Walker, →ISBN

   Synonyms: Sol, mul:☉, mul:☼, mul:☀, Currant Bun, currant bun, Bath bun

plural suns

1. countableuncountableastronomyA star, especially when seen as the centre of any single solar system.

   Because Haestrom's sun has overwhelmed the planet's protective magnetosphere, humans foolhardy enough to venture into geth-controlled Haestrom must exercise extreme caution. Minutes of radiation exposure will overload shields and hours of exposure will kill.

   2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Haestrom Codex entry

2. countableuncountableThe light and heat which are received from the Sun; sunshine or sunlight.

   I have been broiling in the sun all morning.

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   Lambs that did frisk in the sun.

   c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

   His fair hair waved long and freely over a white and unwrinkled forehead: the life of a camp and the suns of Italy had but little embrowned his clear and healthful complexion, which retained much of the bloom of youth.

   1835, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], “The Knight of Provençe, and His Proposal”, in Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes. […], volume I, London: Saunders and Otley, […], →OCLC, book II (The Revolution), page 184

   The sun was on the old man's left arm and shoulder and on his back.

   1952 September 1, Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 67

3. countablefigurativelyuncountableSomething like the sun in brightness or splendor.

   For the Lord God is the ſunne & ſhield vnto vs: […]

   1560, [William Whittingham et al., transl.], The Bible and Holy Scriptures Conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. […] (the Geneva Bible), Geneva: […] Rouland Hall, →OCLC, Psalmes 84:11, folio 253, recto, column 2

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   […] I will never conſent to put out the Sun of Sovereigntie to all Poſterity, […]

   1649 February 19 (Gregorian calendar), attributed to Charles I of England, “Upon their seizing the Kings Magazines, Forts, Navy, and Militia”, in Έἰκὼν Βασιλική [Éikṑn Basilikḗ]. The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Maiestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings: […], [London: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams], →OCLC, page 65

4. literaryuncountableSunrise or sunset.

   You see, the President has five jobs, any one of which would be more than a full-time job for one man; but I have to do all five of them between sun and sun.

   1962, Harry S. Truman, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, page 651

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   Imo[gen].[…]Prythee ſpeake, / How many ſtore of Miles may we well rid / Twixt houre, and houre? / Piſ[anio]. One ſcore 'twixt Sun, and Sun, / Madam's enough for you: and too much too. / Imo[gen]. Why, one that rode to's Excution Man, / Could neuer go ſo ſlow: […]

   1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 381, columns 1–2

   [W]hileſt many an hunger-ſtarved poore creature pines in the ſtreet, wants clothes to cover him, labours hard all day long, runs, rides for a trifle, fights peradventure from Sun to Sun, ſick and ill, weary, full of paine and griefe, is in great diſtreſſe and ſorrow of heart.

   1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Discontents, Cares, Miseries, &c. causes”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 2, member 3, subsection 10, page 110

   I love these sons of earth every mother's son of them, with their great hearty hearts rushing tumultuously in herds from spectacle to spectacle, as if fearful lest there should not be time between sun and sun to see them all, and the sun does not wait more than in haying-time.

   1849, Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, published 1873, page 357

   “Tomorrow at first sun.” Not being much of a morning person, she winced internally. “First sun?” “It is the proper time, when the flowers of the pohoroh first open to the light.”

   1997, Alan Dean Foster, Howling Stones, page 149

5. countableuncountableA revolution of the Earth around the Sun; a year.
6. countableuncountableA transversing of the sky by the Sun; a day.

   Four suns since was the word brought to me from ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed,’ ‘White men come; if white men come, slay them not.’ Let them be brought to the house of ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed.’

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

7. countableuncountableThe nineteenth trump/major arcana card of the tarot.
8. countableuncountablecartomancyThe thirty-first Lenormand card.

present singular third person suns · participle present sunning · participle past sunned · past sunned

1. transitiveTo expose to the heat and radiation of the sun.

   Beautiful bodies lying on the beach, sunning their bronzed limbs.

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   Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines. A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

   Some miles up the passage we sighted one particularly fine swan sunning his wings, and immediately one lady in our party said: "Isn't she a fine bird?" I said: "Yes, he is," and was told that men always imagine they are the superior sex.

   1932 July 14, The Queenslander Illustrated Weekly, Brisbane, page 4, column 3

   There were lots of zany antics and we tried not to stare too obviously at the beautiful women toplessly sunning themselves...

   2000, William Laurance, Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles: Confessions of a Rainforest Biologist

   Synonyms: apricate

2. transitiveTo warm or dry in the sunshine.
3. intransitiveTo be exposed to the sun.
4. intransitivealternative medicineTo expose the eyes to the sun as part of the Bates method.

plural suns

1. A traditional Japanese unit of length, approximately 30.3 millimetres (1.193 inches).

1. alternativeuncountableAlternative form of sunn (“the plant”).

1. The star at the center of the Solar System (our solar system), which shines in our sky.

   Synonyms: Sol, mul:☉, mul:☼, mul:☀, Currant Bun, currant bun, Bath bun

2. The 91st sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
3. journalismAn English tabloid newspaper.

   Synonyms: Currant Bun

plural Suns · alternative Sun.

1. abbreviationAbbreviation of Sunday.

plural Suns

1. A surname.

1. rail transportThe station code of Sunny Bay in Hong Kong.