Plural of dun; multiple colors of dull grayish-brown, or multiple animals or people of dun coloring, or persistent demands for payment.
Three related senses: (1) plural of the color dun from Old English 'dunn'; (2) plural of dun, an animal of that color; (3) from 'dun' meaning to make persistent demands, derived from the name Dun, a legendary insistent creditor. All converged in Middle English.
The word 'duns' (creditors making demands) comes from the legend of a 16th-century London merchant named Dun who was so notoriously aggressive in collecting debts that his name became a verb—it's one of those rare examples of a proper name becoming common slang because someone was *so* memorable at being obnoxious.
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