bairn

English

Etymology

(deprecated template usage)

Borrowed from Scots bairn, from Middle English bern, barn, from Old English bearn, from Proto-Germanic *barną. Doublet of barn.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /beːrn/
• IPA^(key): /bɛəʀn/
• IPA^(key): /bɛəɹn/
• IPA^(key): /bɛən/, /bɛːn/
• IPA^(key): /bɛɚn/

• Audio (Scotland):

  (file)

In some areas (e.g. Bradford), pronounced as IPA^(key): /bɑːn/. See Etymology 2 under barn. (See page 216 in Joseph Wright's A Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill).

Noun

bairn (plural bairns)

1. (Scotland, and parts of Northern England) A child or baby.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:child.

Derived terms

• bairnie/bairny
• bairnish
• bairnless
• bairnlike
• shy bairns get nowt, shy bairns get noot
• stepbairn

References

• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, →ISBN
• Newcastle 1970s, Scott Dobson and Dick Irwin, [1]
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• Todd's Geordie Words and Phrases, George Todd, Newcastle, 1977[2]
• A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, →ISBN
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “bairn”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “bairn”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

References

• “bairn”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• Brain, Brian, Rabin, abrin, brain, brian

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Scots

Etymology

(deprecated template usage)

From Middle English barn, bern, from Old English bearn (“child, son, descendant, offspring, issue, progeny”) and Old Norse barn (“child”), both from Proto-Germanic *barną (“child”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, bring forth”). Cognate with West Frisian bern (“child”), North Frisian baern, born (“child”), Middle High German barn (“child, son, daughter”), Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic barn (“child”), Albanian barrë (“pregnancy, child”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [beːrn]

Noun

bairn (plural bairns)

1. child

Derived terms

• bairnheid
• bairnie
• grandbairn
• stap-bairn

Descendants

• → English: bairn

Verb

bairn (third-person singular simple present bairns, present participle bairnin, simple past bairnt, past participle bairnt)

1. to make pregnant

References

• “bairn”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.