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Erne
Definitions
- 1 A river in Ireland and Northern Ireland, starting in County Cavan, entering County Fermanagh, and passing through Upper and Lower Lough Erne on its way to the sea in County Donegal.
- 2 A surname from German.
- 1 A sea eagle (Haliaeetus), especially the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla)
"Ahoi! come kite! Ahoi! come erne from off the fen!"
- 2 bulky greyish-brown eagle with a short wedge-shaped white tail; of Europe and Greenland wordnet
- 3 An eagle. dialectal, poetic
"the bald erne"
- 1 To long; to yearn. obsolete
Etymology
From Middle English ern, erne, earn, from Old English earn (“eagle”), from Proto-West Germanic *arnu (“eagle”), from Proto-Germanic *arnuz (“eagle”), from Proto-Germanic *arô (“eagle”) (whence also Arnold), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃érō (“large bird, eagle”). Cognate with North Frisian Aarn, iarn, jarn (“eagle”), West Frisian earn (“eagle”), Dutch arend (“eagle”), German Aar (“eagle”), Low German Arend (“eagle”), Danish, Faroese, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk ørn (“eagle”), Icelandic and Swedish örn (“eagle”), Ancient Greek ὄρνεον (órneon), ὄρνις (órnis, “bird”) (whence ornitho-), translingual -ornis, Proto-Slavic *orьlъ (“eagle”).
From Irish abhainn na hÉirne, An Éirne, from a goddess or population called Érainn, which could be related to Old Irish Ériu (“matron goddess of Ireland”), in which case a doublet of Ireland.
* As an Alemannic German surname, from a short form of Arnold. * As an English surname, from archaic erne (“eagle”).
See also for "erne"
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