bairn
/bɛərn/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
[bern]
bairn noun: a child or baby.
Noun
bairn (plural bairns)
- A child or baby.
- She moved about the country like a ghost, gathering herbs in dark loanings, lingering in kirkyairds, and casting a blight on innocent bairns.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
- They say that a shag is good for an unborn child, they get the circulation of blood, or some shite. The least ah kin dae is take an interest in the bairn’s welfare.1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 219
Verb
bairn (third-person singular simple present bairns, present participle bairning, simple past and past participle bairned)
- To get (someone) pregnant.
- Go and kick the man that bairned your Nancy.1992, Robin Jenkins, Happy for the Child, page 108
- Just because he's signed up fir the fuckin army again, six bastard years this time, and bairned some slag.1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 171
bairn meaning in Bengali and Kannada
bairn in Bengali
- শিশু, সন্তান
bairn in Kannada
- ಮಗು, ಕೂಸು
Examples of bairn in a sentence
- It wis a saicont bairn, an Derriakin wis muckle-boukit, sae the birth gaed quick.
- As the saying goes in the north-east, ‘shy bairns get nowt’!
- Moreover, from her earliest days the bairn had some glimmerings of grace.
Forms of bairn
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | bairns |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | bairns |
| present participle | bairning |
| past participle | bairned |
| past | bairned |
Origin of bairn
Borrowed from Scots bairn, from Middle English bern, barn, from Old English bearn, from Proto-West Germanic *barn, from Proto-Germanic *barną. Doublet of barn. Compare West Frisian bern.
Words formed from bairn
Words that rhyme with bairn
Questions about bairn
- What does bairn mean?
- Bairn means a child or baby.
- What is bairn in Bengali?
- Bairn in Bengali is শিশু, সন্তান. See Bairn meaning in Bengali.
- What part of speech is bairn?
- Bairn can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce bairn?
- Bairn is pronounced /bɛərn/.
- What is the plural of bairn?
- The plural of bairn is bairns.
Words near bairn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bairn (page history and authors); bairn (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bairn (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: Eng-bairn-rhoScot.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bairn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bairn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.