Word.ws English Dictionary

bournes

bournes is the plural 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

Phrases with bournes

Questions about bournes

What is bournes the plural of?
Bournes is the plural of bourne.

Words near bournes in the dictionary

  1. Bourne tests
  2. Bournemouth
  3. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
  4. Bournemouthian
  5. Bournemouthians
  6. bournes
  7. Bournes Green
  8. Bourneville's disease
  9. Bournewood
  10. bournless
  11. bournonite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bournes (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.

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