barn

• enPR: bärn
  • (General American, Ireland) IPA^(key): [bɑɹn], [bɑɻn]
  • (Scotland) IPA^(key): [baɾn]
  • (New York City) IPA^(key): [bɒən]
  • (Received Pronunciation, General South African) IPA^(key): [bɑːn]

    • Audio (Southern England):

      (file)

  • (New Zealand, parts of England) IPA^(key): [bɐːn]
  • (General Australian, Wales, Boston) IPA^(key): [baːn]
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)n

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.

barn (plural barns)

2. (agriculture) A building, often found on a farm, used for storage or keeping animals such as cattle.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     One day I was out in the barn and he drifted in. I was currying the horse and he set down on the wheelbarrow and begun to ask questions.

3. (nuclear physics) A unit of surface area equal to 10⁻²⁸ square metres.
4. (informal, basketball, ice hockey) An arena.

   Maple Leaf Gardens was a grand old barn.

5. (slang) A warm and cozy place, especially a bedroom; a roost.

barn (third-person singular simple present barns, present participle barning, simple past and past participle barned)

1. (transitive) To lay up in a barn.

   Synonym: (obsolete) imbarn

   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC, line 859:

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

   • 1645, Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Bad Times; Good Thoughts in Worse Times; Mixt Contemplations in Better Times, published 1863, page 165:

     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.

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

barn (plural barns)

2. (dialect, parts of Northern England) A child.

• (child): bairn

• “barn”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “barn”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• NRAB, bran, N-bar, Bran

From Middle Breton barn, from Proto-Brythonic *barnad, from Proto-Celtic *barnati (“proclaim”). Cognate with Cornish barna.

barn

1. (transitive) To judge.

From Old Danish barn, from Old Norse barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną. Compare English bairn.

• IPA^(key): /barn/, /b̥ɑːˀn/, [pɑ̈ˀn]

barn n (singular definite barnet, plural indefinite børn)

1. child (immature human)

   Dette er ikke et passende sted for børn.

   This is not a fitting place for children.

2. child (human offspring)

   Mine børn er alle flyttet hjemmefra.

   My children have all moved out.

In compounds: barn-, barne-, barns- or børne-.

• “barn” in Den Danske Ordbog

From Old Norse barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną, the passive participle of *beraną; cognate with Latvian bērns (“child”), Lithuanian bérnas (“servant”); from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-.

• IPA^(key): [ˈpatn]
• Rhymes: -atn

barn n (genitive singular barns, plural børn)

1. child

• Audio:

  (file)

barn m (plural barns)

1. (physics) barn (unit)

barn

1. romanization of 𐌱𐌰𐍂𐌽

From Old Norse barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną.

• IPA^(key): [ˈpartn̥], (colloquial) [ˈpatn̥], (southeastern) [ˈparn]
• Rhymes: -artn, -atn

barn n (genitive singular barns, nominative plural börn)

1. child

Unadapted borrowing from English barn.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbarn/
• Rhymes: -arn
• Hyphenation: bàrn

barn m (invariable)

1. (nuclear physics) barn (a unit of surface area)

• barn in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Inherited from Old English bearn, from Proto-West Germanic *barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną.

• bern, bearn, bærn, barne, berne, baren

• IPA^(key): /barn/, /baːrn/, /bɛrn/

barn (plural barnes or barnen)

2. A member of one's immediate offspring or progeny.
3. A child, youth, or baby.
   • c. 1335-1361, William of Palerne (MS. King's College 13), folio 6, recto, lines 198-199; republished as W. W. Skeat, editor, The Romance of William of Palerne‎^[1], London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1867, →OCLC, page 12:

     Hit tidde after on a time · as tellus our bokes / as þis bold barn his beſtes · blybeliche keped […]

     Afterwards, as our books record, it happened one day that / while this brave child was peacefully looking after his animals […]

4. A person; a member of humanity.
5. A younger soldier or fighter.

• English: barn, bern (obsolete, dialectal)
• Geordie English: bairn
• Scots: bairn
  • → English: bairn
• Yola: barrn

• “bā̆rn, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 25 April 2018.

barn

2. alternative form of bern (“barn”)

From Old Norse barn (“child”), from Proto-Germanic *barną (“child”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”).

• IPA^(key): /bɑːɳ/

barn n (definite singular barnet, indefinite plural barn, definite plural barna or barnene)

1. child

• “barn” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• badn, bonn, bån

From Old Norse barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną (“child”), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”). The plural form born is from the Old Norse u-umlauted form bǫrn. This umlaut can also be seen in Icelandic börn and Danish and Faroese børn.

• IPA^(key): /baːrn/, /baːn/, /baːɳ/
• (palatal N) IPA^(key): /baːɲ/

barn n (definite singular barnet, indefinite plural barn or born, definite plural barna or borna)

1. child

• bera (“to bear, carry”, verb)

• “barn” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Old Norse barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną.

barn n (genitive barns, plural børn)

1. child

• Danish: barn

barn

1. first/third-person singular preterite of beirnan

From Proto-West Germanic *barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną, whence also Old Saxon barn, Old English bearn, Old Norse barn.

barn n

1. child

From Proto-Germanic *barną, the passive participle of *beraną; cognate with Latvian bērns (“child”), Lithuanian bérnas (“servant”); from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-.

barn n (genitive barns, plural bǫrn)

1. child

• Zoëga, Geir T. (1910) “barn”, in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press; also available at the Internet Archive

From Proto-West Germanic *barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną, whence also Old English bearn, Old High German barn, Old Norse barn.

barn n

1. child

• ᛒᛆᚱᚿ (Runic)

From Old Norse barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną.

barn n

1. child

• Swedish: barn

Borrowed from English barn.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbarn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -arn
• Syllabification: barn

barn m inan

1. (nuclear physics) barn (unit of surface area equal to 10⁻²⁸ square metres)

• barn in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaɾn/ [ˈbaɾn]
• Rhymes: -aɾn
• Syllabification: barn

barn m (plural barns)

1. (physics) barn

• “barn”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

From Old Swedish barn (“child”), from Old Norse barn (“child”), from Proto-Germanic *barną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-.

Cognate with Danish barn, Icelandic barn, Old Saxon barn, Old High German barn, Latvian bērns (“child”), Lithuanian bérnas (“worker”) and bernẽlis (“lad”), a kind of participle to bära (“to bear, to carry, as in childbirth”).

• IPA^(key): /bɑːrn/, [bɑːɳ]

• Audio:

  (file)

barn n

1. a child (person who has not reached adulthood)

   Hyponyms: pojke, flicka

   Både barn och vuxna är välkomna.

   Both children and adults are welcome.

2. a child (son or daughter)

   Hyponyms: son, dotter

   Hon pussade sina barn godnatt.

   She kissed her children good night.

   hans vuxna barn

   his adult children

3. (figuratively) a child (figurative offspring)

   Han är ett barn av sin tid.

   He is a child of his times.

   • 2010, Lars Cavallin, transl., Katolska kyrkans katekes‎^[2], Catholica, archived from the original on 20 January 2025, §1213:

     Genom dopet befrias vi från synden och föds på nytt som Guds barn.

     Through baptism, we are freed from sin and reborn as children of God.

   • 2021 January 2, TT Nyhetsbyrån, “Fem namn du kommer att höra om 2021”, in Borås Tidning‎^[3], archived from the original on 26 May 2025:

     – Mina låtar är som mina barn.

     "My songs are like my children."

4. (uncountable) barn (a unit of area in nuclear physics)

• unge
• telning

• barn in Svenska Akademiens ordböcker
• barn in Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (1st ed., 1922)
• Svensk MeSH

From Middle Welsh barnu, from Proto-Brythonic *barnad, from Proto-Celtic *barnati, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerH-.

• IPA^(key): /barn/

barn f (plural barnau)

1. opinion, view
2. judgement, sentence

• anwadalfarn (“changeable of mind”)
• barnu (“to adjudge; to pass sentence”)
• Dydd y Farn (“Judgement Day”)
• rhagfarn (“prejudice”)