Skip to content
Vinony

barn

noun

  1. agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace
L16131 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: [ˈbɑɹn] / [ˈbɑɻn] / [ˈbaɹn]

name

Etymology: * Clipping of Barney. * Clipping of Barnett. * Clipping of Barnabas. * Clipping of Barnaby. * Clipping of Barnard.

  1. A diminutive of the male given names Barney, Barnabas, Barnaby, or Barnett.
  2. A unisex given name transferred from the surname; diminutive of Barnard (“surname”).

noun

Etymology: From Middle English barn, bern, from Old English bearn (“child, son, offspring, progeny”) and Old Norse barn (“child”). Doublet of bairn. Cognate to West Frisian bern (“child, children”), Middle Dutch baren (“child”).

  1. A child.

verb

Etymology: From Middle English barn, bern, bærn, from Old English bearn, bern, contracted forms of Old English berern, bereærn (“barn, granary”), compound of bere (“barley”) and ærn, ræn (“dwelling, barn”), from Proto-West Germanic *raʀn, from Proto-Germanic *razną (compare Old Norse rann), from pre-Germanic *h₁rh̥₁-s-nó-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁erh₁- (“to rest”). More at rest and barley. For the use as a unit of surface area, see w:Barn (unit) § Etymology.

  1. To lay up in a barn.

    “But like still-pining Tantalus he sits / And useless barns the harvest of his wits”

    “Hypocrites, in like manner, so act holiness that they pass for saints before men, whose censures often barn up the chaff, and burn up the grain.”