Hain

noun, verb

noun, verb ·1 syllable ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An enclosure; a park Northern-England, Scotland, dialectal, obsolete
Verb
  1. 1
    To hedge or fence in; enclose; protect by hedging. Northern-England, Scotland, dialectal, transitive
  2. 2
    To save; spare; refrain from using or spending. Northern-England, Scotland, dialectal, transitive
  3. 3
    To be thrifty; be economical. Northern-England, Scotland, dialectal, intransitive

Etymology

From earlier hayne, from Middle English *haynen, *heynen, from Old Norse hegna (“to protect; defend”), from Proto-Germanic *haginjaną (“to hedge”), equivalent to hedge + -en. Cognate with Icelandic hegna (“to fence; confine; punish”), Swedish hägna (“to fence off; enclose; protect”), Danish hegne (“to enclose; fence in”). Related to hedge. The noun is from Middle English heyn.

Related phrases

fence in

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