bullaun

English

Etymology

Irish bullán.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʊlɔːn/, /ˈbʊlɑːn/

Noun

bullaun (plural bullauns)

1. A natural depression in a stone, often filled with water and sometimes pebbles.
   • 1972, Seamus Heaney, "A New Song", Wintering Out, Faber and Faber (1972):

     And Castledawson we'll enlist

     And Upperlands, each planted bawn-

     Like bleaching-greens resumed by grass-

     A vocable, as rath and bullaun.

   • 1987, Paul Muldoon, "Brock", Meeting The British, Faber and Faber (1987):

     For when he shuffles

     across the esker

     I glimpse my grandfather’s whiskers

     stained with tobacco-pollen.

     When he piddles against a bullaun

     I know he carries bovine TB