Bairn

//bɛərn// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A child or baby. Scotland

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

  2. 2
    a child: son or daughter wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To get (someone) pregnant. Scotland, transitive

    "Go and kick the man that bairned your Nancy."

Synonyms

All synonyms
childkidbabberbabybarnbarn

Example

More examples

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

Etymology

Borrowed 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.

Related phrases

bairn-timegod-bairn giftknave bairnshy bairns get nootshy bairns get nowt

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.