Etymograph

English

gun

Gun comes from Middle English gunne.

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500gunne1
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1879gun1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English gun
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1879, Richard Jefferies, London: Smith: “They burned the old gun that used to stand…”.

Lineage

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500gunneWiktionary, English gun
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1879gunWiktionary, English gun. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1879, Richard Jefferies, London: Smith: “They burned the old gun that used to stand…”

The story

From Middle English gunne, gonne, possibly from Gunnhild, a female given name formerly used as a nickname for engines of war (compare Nordic Gunn, a female name meaning “battle”). The name is composed of the Norse elements gunnr and hildr, both meaning "battle".

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with gun, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Middle English gunne

2 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “gun”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Middle English gunne / gun