tune, verb

Forms:
choon, chuneShow more Also choon, chune, tjoone.
Origin:
EnglishShow more Transferred uses of general English tune to set, to adjust, to put into alignment.
slang
1. transitive
a. obsolete. To hit or thrash (someone).
1946 C.P. Wittstock in E. Partridge Dict. of Underworld (1950) 394To hit a man..to tune him, label him.
1946 A. Nash in E. Partridge Dict. of Underworld (1950) 394To hit hard: Tune him, label him full of dents.
b. figurative. To ‘give it a bash’, to enjoy life.
1982 Pace May 158They used to ‘tune’ it in the olden days around Vrededorp alias Fidas.
2. Senses related to the underlying sense of ‘to talk’ or ‘to tell’.
a. transitive. In the phrases to tune (someone) grief, to tune (someone) skeef [see skeef adverb], to give (someone) trouble, to abuse (someone) verbally; to complain.
1972 Rhodeo (Rhodes Univ.) 23 Mar. 5We’re a minority group and these cats tune us skeef.
1976 ‘Blossom’ in Darling 4 Feb. 87She never tunes me grief like that before.
1985 Style Oct. 36‘What’s your case tcherrie?’ ‘So how many chicks you got?’ ‘You tuning me grief!’
1985 Style Oct. [see gaan].
b. transitive. To tell (someone something), to relate (something to someone). Cf. chaff sense 2 b.
1976 [see sukkel sense 1].
1979 Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)So I must tune my aunt she sends me another postal order.
1981 L. & P. Robertson-Hotz in Bloody Horse No.3, 33Five minutes later he was back, this time with a bit of a bulge under his shirt. ‘Ah,’ he chuned us, ‘it’s good to have a gat again.’
1982 Pace May 158Lekker, we sommer tune you everything. We jus’ firs’ go get a couple of beers and park by the lake.
1982 Pace May [see larney n. sense 1 a].
1983 A. Goldstuck in Frontline Oct. 61I tune you, mate, if I can get one mamba chow a day, I scheme life is kif.
1983 Cape Times 9 Dec. 16David ‘the ou’ (as opposed to Kramer ‘the muso’) starts tuning you lank Boland stories about his youth and his observations of life in suburbia.
1985 P. Slabolepszy Sat. Night at Palace 58Just because I come home a bit stoned, he tries to lock me out of the house. He tunes me, ja that’s why they skopped me out of Iscor. I mean hell, man, when I met him he was a bigger rooker than I was!
1987 Scope 20 Nov. 43This is a mad move, isn’t it now? See what I tuned you?
c. transitive. To have (someone) on, to spin (someone) a yarn.
1983 Sunday Times 18 Sept. (Lifestyle) 1No man, I’m not tuning you. I always wear my party gear when I feel like a pick-me-up.
d. intransitive and transitive. To say; to speak to (someone). Cf. chaff sense 2 a.
1985 P. Slabolepszy Sat. Night at Palace 13He tunes:..‘Don’t take shit from the ref, man — hit him!’
1987 D.J. Grant in Frontline June 16‘Two!’ he says. You tune, ‘It’s seventy [cents] to Algoa, man. That’s one Rand forty.’
1987 Scope 6 Nov. 4Hey, ek sê bros, what I’m trying to tune is that we scheme this is a kiff issue, and we hope you smaak it.
1990 R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart 53Black dope dealers were suspicious of whites, so you had to tune them in tsotsi-taal, the half-Afrikaans patois of the streets.
1993 ‘Jimbo’ programme insert, NapacTjoone. Speak.
e. transitive. chaff sense 3.
1990 Frontline Mar.–Apr. 12The warder..spruces up and leaves to choon chicks. We see him no more.
To hit or thrash (someone).
To ‘give it a bash’, to enjoy life.
In the phrases to tune (someone) grief, to tune (someone) skeef [see skeef adverb],to give (someone) trouble, to abuse (someone) verbally; to complain.
To tell (someone something), to relate (something to someone). Cf. chaff sense 2 b.
To have (someone) on, to spin (someone) a yarn.
To say; to speak to (someone).
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

19461993
tulp-boom, nounn.tung-ziekte, nounn.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English