TUN, noun [Latin teneo, to hold; Gr. to stretch.]

1. In a general sense, a large cask; an oblong vessel bulging in the middle, like a pipe or puncheon, and girt with hoops.

2. A certain measure for liquids, as for wine, oil, etc.

3. A quantity of wine, consisting of two pipes or four hogsheads, or 252 gallons. In different countries, the tun differs in quantity.

4. In commerce, the weight of twenty hundreds gross, each hundred consisting of 112 lb = 2240 lb. But by a law of Connecticut, passed June 1827, gross weight is abolished, and a tun is the weight of 2000 lb. It is also a practice in noun York to sell by 2000 lb. to the tun

5. A certain weight by which the burden of a ship is estimated; as a ship of three hundred tuns, that is, a ship that will carry three hundred times two thousand weight. Forty two cubic feet are allowed to a tun

6. A certain quantity of timber, consisting of forty solid feet if round, or fifty four feet if square.

7. Proverbially, a large quantity.

8. In burlesque, a drunkard.

9. At the end of names, tun ton, or don, signifies town, village, or hill.

TUN, verb transitive To put into casks.