tun

noun \ ˈtən \

Updated on: 28 Mar 2018

Definition of tun

1 : a large cask especially for wine

2 : any of various units of liquid capacity; especially : one equal to 252 gallons

Examples of tun in a Sentence

in olden days an English ship's capacity was measured by the number of tuns of wine it could hold

Recent Examples of tun from the Web

Stephen Lyons welds a leg onto at later tun inside the new Southern Tier and Victory brewery in South End.

— ely portillo, charlotteobserver, "‘Beer’s the hero.’ One of the biggest breweries in Charlotte is set to open soon. | Charlotte Observer," 13 Mar. 2018
Steam heats the cooking tun, which creates an even boil.

— john perritano, Popular Mechanics, "How the Founding Fathers Made Their Beer," 25 June 2013
Forks clank down, sleeves roll up, and diners file into the abutting bodega to fill their glasses with cool, foamy sagardo straight from the 5,000-gallon tun.

— benjamin kemper, Condé Nast Traveler, "On the Cider Trail in Spain's Basque Country," 16 Feb. 2018
The brewer then soaks the grist in a vat of hot water called the mash tun, which converts the starch into sugar.

— john perritano, Popular Mechanics, "How the Founding Fathers Made Their Beer," 25 June 2013
Modern brewers pass the mash into a device called the mash/lauter tun for straining.

— john perritano, Popular Mechanics, "How the Founding Fathers Made Their Beer," 25 June 2013
All the remaining grain falls to the bottom of the stainless steel tun, creating a grain bed through which the liquid passes on its way back to the mash kettle.

— tara massouleh, AL.com, "Summer Fun: A day in the life of a brewer," 31 May 2017
Its mash tun, a vessel used for converting grains into sugars, was a dairy chilling tank and its boil kettle had been used to make vodka.

— vickie snow jurkowski, Daily Southtown, "New breweries, expansions and festivals on tap for Southland," 4 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'tun.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of tun

Middle English tonne, tunne, from Old English & Anglo-French; Old English, from Medieval Latin tunna; Anglo-French tone, tonne, from Medieval Latin

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: before 12th century

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