bairn

• barn

From Middle English bern, barn, from Old English bearn. Cognate with English bear, West Frisian bern, Swedish barn, Old High German barn

• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /bɛəɹn/, /bɛəɹn/
• (Northumberland) IPA^(key): /bɛəʀn/
• (UK, rhotic) IPA^(key): /bɛəɹn/
• (UK, non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /bɛən/
• (US, Canada, Ireland, West Country) 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).

bairn (plural bairns)

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

• See also Thesaurus:child.

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

• The New Geordie Dictionary, Frank Graham, 1987, →ISBN
• Newcastle 1970s, Scott Dobson and Dick Irwin,
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• Todd's Geordie Words and Phrases, George Todd, Newcastle, 1977
• A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, →ISBN
• “bairn” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
• bairn in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• “bairn” (US) / “bairn” (UK) in Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.

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

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”).

• IPA^(key): [beːrn]

bairn (plural bairns)

1. child

• bairnheid
• bairnie
• grandbairn
• stap-bairn

• → English: bairn

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

1. to make pregnant

• “bairn” (US) / “bairn” (UK) in Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.