Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Lune
1.
Anything in the shape of a half moon.
[R.]
2.
(Geom.)
A figure in the form of a crescent, bounded by two intersecting arcs of circles.
3.
A fit of lunacy or madness; a period of frenzy; a crazy or unreasonable freak.
[Obs.]
These dangerous, unsafe
lunes
i’ the king. Shakespeare
Webster 1828 Edition
Lune
LUNE
,Noun.
1.
Any thing in the shape of a half-moon. [Little used.]2.
A fit of lunacy or madness, or a freak. [Not used.]3.
A leash; as the lune of a hawk.Definition 2024
Lune
lune
lune
English
Noun
lune (plural lunes)
- (obsolete) A fit of lunacy or madness; a period of frenzy; a crazy or unreasonable freak
- 1623, Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale:
- These dangerous, unsafe lunes i' the king.
-
Etymology 2
From French lune, from Latin luna.
Noun
lune (plural lunes)
- A concave figure formed by the intersection of the arcs of two circles on a plane, or on a sphere the intersection between two great semicircles
- 1984, Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner:
- What he worried about was any eventual convexity, a shrinking, it might be, of the planet itself to some palpable curvature of whatever he would be standing on, so that he would be left sticking out like a projected radius, unsheltered and reeling across the empty lunes of his tiny sphere.
-
- Anything crescent-shaped
Usage notes
The corresponding convex shape is sometimes called a lune, but is, strictly, a lens.
Related terms
Etymology 3
Alteration of lyon.
Noun
lune (plural lunes)
- (hawking) A leash for a hawk.
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter xvj, in Le Morte Darthur, book VI:
- And thenne was he ware of a Faucon came fleynge ouer his hede toward an hyghe elme / and longe lunys aboute her feet / and she flewe vnto the elme to take her perche / the lunys ouer cast aboute a bough / And whanne she wold haue taken her flyghte / she henge by the legges fast / and syre launcelot sawe how he henge
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter xvj, in Le Morte Darthur, book VI:
See also
Danish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /luːnə/, [ˈluːnə]
Etymology 1
From Middle Low German lūne (“lunar phase, caprice”), from Latin lūna. Cognate with German Laune.
Noun
lune n (singular definite lunet, plural indefinite luner)
Inflection
Inflection of lune
Synonyms
- (mood): humør
Etymology 2
From Old Norse lugna (“to calm”).
Verb
lune (imperative lun, infinitive at lune, present tense luner, past tense lunede, perfect tense er/har lunet)
Etymology 3
See lun (“warm”).
Adjective
lune
- definite and plural of lun
French
Etymology
From Old French lune, from Latin lūna, from Old Latin losna, from Proto-Italic *louksnā, from Proto-Indo-European *lowksneh₂, from Proto-Indo-European *lewk-.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /lyn/
Noun
lune f (plural lunes)
- The Moon.
- Any natural satellite of a planet.
- (literary) A month, particularly a lunar month.