boreen
UK/bɔːˈɹiːn/
boreen noun: a narrow, frequently unpaved, rural road in Ireland, often characterised by a ridge of grass growing in the middle.
Noun
boreen (plural boreens)
- A narrow, frequently unpaved, rural road in Ireland, often characterised by a ridge of grass growing in the middle.
- Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen \ And she smiled as she passed me by.c. 1900, “Star of the County Down (traditional folk song)”
- A boy in a disguise nobody believed in, an actor playing a part he didn't understand, he would trudge every rocky field and quaking bog, every pot-holed road and tortuous boreen, each of the thirteen villages on his father's estate, speaking the Irish he had learned from his father's servants.2002, Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage, published 2003, page 63
Forms of boreen
| plural | boreens |
|---|---|
| alternative form | bohereen |
| alternative form | bohireen |
Origin of boreen
Borrowed from Irish bóithrín, from bóthar (“road”) and -ín (diminutive suffix).
Words that rhyme with boreen
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- glean
- between
- byzantine
- canteen
- greene
- preen
- Racine
- careen
- intervene
- lean
- wean
- Christine
- obscene
- routine
- skene
- spleen
- submarine
- cuisine
- gasoline
- irene
- red bean
- serene
- -ene
- baleen
- demean
- eleventeen
- fascine
- gombeen
- latrine
- pristine
- Qazvin
- sheen
- tangerine
- unclean
- unseen
- vaccine
- amine
- aquamarine
- Beane
- beseen
- bottine
- chopine
- Enigma machine
- Eugene
- gene
- in between
- internecine
- jean
Questions about boreen
- What does boreen mean?
- Boreen means a narrow, frequently unpaved, rural road in Ireland, often characterised by a ridge of grass growing in the middle.
- What part of speech is boreen?
- Boreen is a noun.
- How do you pronounce boreen?
- Boreen is pronounced /bɔːˈɹiːn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of boreen?
- The plural of boreen is boreens.
Words near boreen in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: boreen (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:
Cite this entry: “boreen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boreen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.