bairn
pronunciation
How to pronounce bairn in British English:
UK [beən]
How to pronounce bairn in American English:
US [bern]
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- Noun:
- a child: son or daughter
Word Origin
- bairn
- bairn: see bear
- bairn (n.)
- "child" (of any age), Old English bearn "child, son, descendant," probably related to beran ("to bear, carry, give birth;" see bear (v.)). Originally not chiefly Scottish, but felt as such from c. 1700. This was the English form of the original Germanic word for "child" (see child). Dutch, Old High German kind, German Kind are from a prehistoric *gen-to-m "born," from the same root as Latin gignere. Middle English had bairn-team "brood of children."
Example
- 1. A forest is no place to have a bairn .
- 2. I cannot believe she 's going off to university . Seems like only last week she was still just a bairn .
- 3. Well , it seems the man cried so sore , if he could just see his little bairn before he died .
- 4. ' I think he swore : but I didn 't mind him , I was straining to see the bairn , ' and she began again to describe it rapturously .