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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

barn.

A building, often found on a farm, used for storage or keeping animals such as cattle.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈbɑɹn]Canada, General-American[ˈbɑɻn]Canada, General-American[ˈbaɹn]Ireland, Scotland[ˈbɒən]

  1. A building, often found on a farm, used for storage or keeping animals such as cattle.

  2. A unit of surface area equal to 10⁻²⁸ square metres.

  3. An arena.

    informal
    Maple Leaf Gardens was a grand old barn.

  4. A warm and cozy place, especially a bedroom; a roost.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle English barn, bern, bærn, from Old English bearn, bern, contracted forms of Old English berern, bereærn (“barn, granary”), compound of bere (“barley”) and ærn, ræn (“dwelling, barn”), from Proto-West Germanic *raʀn, from Proto-Germanic *razną (compare Old Norse rann), from pre-Germanic *h₁rh̥₁-s-nó-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁erh₁- (“to rest”). More at rest and barley. For the use as a unit of surface area, see w:Barn (unit) § Etymology.

verb[ˈbɑɹn]Canada, General-American[ˈbɑɻn]Canada, General-American[ˈbaɹn]Ireland, Scotland[ˈbɒən]

  1. To lay up in a barn.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English barn, bern, bærn, from Old English bearn, bern, contracted forms of Old English berern, bereærn (“barn, granary”), compound of bere (“barley”) and ærn, ræn (“dwelling, barn”), from Proto-West Germanic *raʀn, from Proto-Germanic *razną (compare Old Norse rann), from pre-Germanic *h₁rh̥₁-s-nó-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁erh₁- (“to rest”). More at rest and barley. For the use as a unit of surface area, see w:Barn (unit) § Etymology.

noun[ˈbɑɹn]Canada, General-American[ˈbɑɻn]Canada, General-American[ˈbaɹn]Ireland, Scotland[ˈbɒən]

  1. A child.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English barn, bern, from Old English bearn (“child, son, offspring, progeny”) and Old Norse barn (“child”). Doublet of bairn. Cognate to West Frisian bern (“child, children”), Middle Dutch baren (“child”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.