Sharn
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The dung or manure of cattle or sheep. Scotland, uncountable
"right between the byre and the stable and the barn on one side and the house on the other was the cattle-court and right in the middle of that the midden, high and yellow with dung and straw and sharn, and Mistress Strachan could never forgive Peesie's Knapp because of that awful smell it had."
Example
More examples"right between the byre and the stable and the barn on one side and the house on the other was the cattle-court and right in the middle of that the midden, high and yellow with dung and straw and sharn, and Mistress Strachan could never forgive Peesie's Knapp because of that awful smell it had."
Etymology
From Middle English scharn, from Old English sċearn (“sharn, dung, muck, filth”), from Proto-West Germanic *skarn, from Proto-Germanic *skarną (“manure”), from Proto-Indo-European *sker- (“dung, manure”). Cognate with North Frisian skern (“dung, manure”), Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic skarn (“dung”), German Harn (“urine”). Doublet of skarn.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.