bairn

Orthographic borrowing from Scots bairn, from Middle English bern, barn, from Old English bearn, from Proto-West Germanic *barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną. Doublet of barn. Compare West Frisian bern.

• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /bern/, /bɛrn/
• (Northumberland, North Durham, rhotic) IPA^(key): /ˈbɛəʁn/
• (UK, rhotic) IPA^(key): /ˈbɛəɹn/
• (UK, non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /ˈbɛən/, /ˈbɛːn/
• (US, Canada, Ireland, West Country) IPA^(key): /ˈbɛɚn/

• Audio (Scotland)

  (file)

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

• Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)n, -ɛːn, -aːn

bairn (plural bairns)

1. (Scotland, and parts of Northern England) A child or baby.
   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

     She moved about the country like a ghost, gathering herbs in dark loanings, lingering in kirkyairds, and casting a blight on innocent bairns.

   • 1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 219:

     They say that a shag is good for an unborn child, they get the circulation of blood, or some shite. The least ah kin dae is take an interest in the bairn’s welfare.

• See also Thesaurus:child.

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

• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, →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
• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “bairn”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• bairn in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

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

• Barin, 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”), 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): /bern/, /bɛrn/

• Audio

  (file)

bairn (plural bairns)

1. child

   A went tae that schuil whan A wis a wee bairn an aw.

   I also went to that school when I was a young child

• bairnheid
• bairnie
• grandbairn
• stap-bairn

• → English: bairn

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

1. to make pregnant

   Whaiver he wis, he'd bairned her.

   Whoever he was, he'd got her pregnant.

• “bairn” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.