1. A member of a nomadic pastoralist people who invaded Europe in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. and were defeated in 455.
2. often hun A barbarous or destructive person.
3. Offensive Slang. Used as a disparaging term for a German, especially a German soldier in World War I.

[From Late Latin Hunnī, the Huns, from Turki Hunyü.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.