Etymology Clipping of honey with pronunciation spelling.
1
Alternative, Informal Alternative spelling of hon (“affectionate abbreviation of honey”).
So social media has broken even Elon Musk. I’m forced to ask: U OK hun? [title]2025 June 13, Marina Hyde, “So social media has broken even Elon Musk. I’m forced to ask: U OK hun?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
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UK, Slang A woman perceived as basic, brash, working class and fond of alcohol.
Answer: you are a hun – but a high-end hun, one who knows her wine, her music, her interiors and her labels, and whose reluctance to do Dry January, or go vegan makes her such great company, this month and every month.2023 January 25, Laura Craik, “They’re glamorous, ageless and British – the rise of the high-end hun”, in The Telegraph:
It’s no wonder she’s become a central figure in “hun culture” – an online subculture that idolises a certain strata of famous working-class British women, while also taking the mick out of her leopard print kettle and weakness for a premixed gin-in-a-tin cocktail.2024 March 29, Louis Staples, “Natalie Cassidy: ‘I’m very proud to be a hun’”, in i:
3
Slang A woman involved in a multi-level marketing scheme, especially one who pushes it on social media.
This corporate love-bombing can serve a hun well, bagging them new downlines and potentially more money (MLMs are renowned for extremely low pay).2019 July 10, Jessica Lindsay, “Hunzoning is the trend that sees you going from friend to MLM recruit”, in Metro:
Instead of blaming MLM "huns," we should direct our anger at the companies that are knowingly putting so many people in debt and alienating them from their communities.2024 April 18, Aimee Pearcy, “Why Reddit and TikTok are hating on MLM 'huns'”, in Business Insider:
Etymology From Old English Hūnas, Hūne (both plural), from Late Latin Hunni, from Koine Greek Οὗννοι (Hoûnnoi), borrowed through Middle Iranian. Cognate with Old Norse húnir, Old High German Hunni. See also etymology of Xiongnu. Compare Sogdian [script needed] (xwn), Sanskrit हूण (hūṇa), and 匈奴 (OC *hoŋ-nâ) (c. 318 BCE) > *hɨoŋ-nɑ (Eastern Han), which Schuessler (2014:264) proposes to be transcription of foreign *Hŏna ~ Hŭna. More at Huns. As a derogatory term for Germans popularized by Rudyard Kipling, reacting to Germany's proposal that the Royal Navy be used to collect debts from Venezuela.
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A member of a nomadic tribe (the Huns) who invaded Europe in the fourth century from Central Asia.
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Figuratively A vandal, a barbarian, an uncivilized destructive person.
Doubtless the first German band to return to England will be composed of the most gentle peace and beer-loving Huns that ever visited our favoured shores.1919, Gerald Featherstone Knight, Brother Bosch: An Airman's Escape from Germany: