Word.ws English Dictionary

bourn

UK/bɔːn//boɹn/

bourn is the alternative form of bourne.

Meaning of bourne

Noun (1)

bourne (countable and uncountable, plural bournes)

  1. (archaic, countable) A boundary; a limit.
    • [T]he dread of ſomething after death, / The vndiſcouer'd country, from whoſe borne / No trauiler returnes, puzzels the will, […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...
  2. (archaic) A goal or destination.
    • I passed through many beautiful and majestic scenes; but my eyes were fixed and unobserving. I could only think of the bourne of my travels, and the work which was to occupy me whilst they endured.1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding...

Noun (2)

bourne (plural bournes)

  1. A stream or brook in which water flows only seasonally; a small stream or brook.

See all 10 meanings of bourne

Proper noun capitalized: Bourn

Bourn (countable and uncountable, plural Bourns)

  1. A surname.
  2. A village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire district, Cambridgeshire, England (OS grid ref TL3256).

Forms of bourn

Noun
pluralbourns
Proper noun
pluralBourns

Words formed from bourn

Questions about bourn

What does bourn mean?
Bourn means a surname.
What is bourn the alternative form of?
Bourn is the alternative form of bourne.
What part of speech is bourn?
Bourn is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bourn?
Bourn is pronounced /bɔːn/ (UK).

Words near bourn in the dictionary

  1. bourkhas
  2. Bourland
  3. Bourlands
  4. bourlaw
  5. bourlaws
  6. bourn
  7. Bournbrook
  8. Bournda
  9. bourne
  10. Bourne End
  11. Bourne test

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bourn (page history and authors); Bourn (page history and authors); bourne (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Neøn-bourn.wav.

Cite this entry: “bourn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bourn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.