Bere
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Barley, especially four-rowed barley or six-rowed barley. Scotland, uncountable
- 2 A pillowcase; a fabric case or covering as for a pillow; a pillowbere. dialectal
"Woven and embroidered coverlets in imitation of tapestry appear as 'a tapestry covering which lieth on my bed' [...] 'a pillow of feathers with a bere' (pillow-case); 'two pillows and the beres to [cover them]'"
Example
More examples"Woven and embroidered coverlets in imitation of tapestry appear as 'a tapestry covering which lieth on my bed' [...] 'a pillow of feathers with a bere' (pillow-case); 'two pillows and the beres to [cover them]'"
Etymology
From Middle English bere (“barley”), from Old English bere (“barley”), from Proto-West Germanic *barī, from Proto-Germanic *baraz (“barley”). Compare Welsh bara (“bread”), Latin far (“emmer”), Serbo-Croatian бра̏шно/brȁšno (“flour”), Albanian bar (“grass”), Ancient Greek Φήρον (Phḗron, “plant deity”). See also: barley.
See bear (“pillowcase”)
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.