tun

Tun is a historical term with two principal senses: a large cask for storing liquids and a unit of volume used in medieval and early modern trade. As a container, a tun was typically a sizable wooden cask, secured with hoops, designed to hold wine, beer, oil, or other liquids. Tuns were common in ports and warehouses across Europe and were important for measuring shipments and storage capacity in commercial practice.

As a unit of volume, the tun referred to the amount such a cask could hold. The exact capacity varied by region and era, but the tun generally signified a large volume, commonly regarded as roughly around a cubic meter (about 1,000 liters). In historical records, merchants and guilds often used the tun as a standardized measure for trading quantities, cask inventory, and taxation calculations.

Etymology and context: the word derives from Old English tun, meaning a large cask or tank, and is related to cognate terms in other medieval languages such as Old French tonneau. Over time, the sense of tun as a unit faded from everyday use and is now encountered mainly in historical writings, archaeology, and discussions of old trade practices.

In modern usage, tun survives primarily as a historical term rather than a contemporary measurement. It is encountered in discussions of medieval economy, port towns, and literature describing past cask-based storage and commerce. See also wine cask and tonneau for related concepts.