Word.ws English Dictionary

bawns

bawns is the plural of bawn.

Meaning of bawn

Noun

bawn (plural bawns)

  1. (Ireland) A cattle-fort; a building used to shelter cattle.
    • But these round hills and square bawnes, which you see so strongly trenched and throwne up1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […]...
  2. (Ireland) A defensive wall built around a tower house. It was once used to protect livestock during an attack.
    • He [...] then made his way
      to where he belonged in Bronding country,
      home again, sure of his ground
      in strongroom and bawn.1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 18

Questions about bawns

What is bawns the plural of?
Bawns is the plural of bawn.

Words near bawns in the dictionary

  1. bawly
  2. bawn
  3. Bawnboy
  4. bawneen
  5. bawneens
  6. bawns
  7. Bawsey
  8. bawsin
  9. bawsins
  10. bawson
  11. bawsond

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bawns (page history and authors); bawn (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.

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