churn
UK/tʃɜːn//t͡ʃɝn/
churn verb: to agitate rapidly and repetitively, or to stir with a rowing or rocking motion; generally applies to liquids, notably cream.
Verb
churn (third-person singular simple present churns, present participle churning, simple past and past participle churned)
- To agitate rapidly and repetitively, or to stir with a rowing or rocking motion; generally applies to liquids, notably cream.
- Now the cream is churned to make butter.
- no-churn ice cream
- To produce excessive and sometimes undesirable or unproductive activity or motion.
- The slope of the terrain, shaped like a funnel, squeezed the growing swell of churning snow into a steep, twisting gorge.2012, John Branch, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in New York Times
- To move rapidly and repetitively with a rocking motion; to tumble, mix or shake.
- I was so nervous that my stomach was churning.
- Synonyms:
- heave
- To stop using a company's product or service.
- Subscriptions can be ended or canceled, which is known as churn. If there are no subscriptions, a customer churns when they stop using the product.2020, Carl S. Gold, Fighting Churn with Data, page 5
- To repeatedly cancel and rebook a reservation in order to refresh ticket time limits or other fare rule restrictions.
- To continually sign up for new credit cards in order to earn signup bonuses, airline miles, and other benefits.
- To carry out wash sales in order to make the market appear more active than it really is.
- To digest.
Noun
churn (countable and uncountable, plural churns)
- A vessel used for churning, especially for producing butter.
- a butter churn
- We notice by our exchanges that great efforts are being made throughout the western States especially, to palm off upon the farming public various kinds of patent churns, or to induce many mechanics to give large sums for the Right to manufacture the same—while in a majority of cases, we believe...1849 January 15, “A Glance at Patent Churns”, in Ohio Cultivator: Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture and Domestic Economy, volume 5, number 2, page 17
- A milk churn (container for the transportation of milk).
- As the ends of the up and down platforms are not opposite each other, it is not possible to provide the ordinary type of barrow crossing, and the full churns were too heavy to be man-handled up and down the stairs of the footbridge.1951 October, “The Why and the Wherefore: Milk Platform at Beccles”, in Railway Magazine, page 717
- In the old days, milk trains consisted entirely of vans loaded with ten-gallon churns. When filled, these churns weigh 130 lb. each and their manipulation is an art. [...] Like the tank wagons, the churns are dairy property, but farmers often have other ideas, and find their own uses for them—it...1959 March, R. C. Riley, “Home with the milk”, in Trains Illustrated, page 155
- Customer attrition; the phenomenon or rate of customers leaving a company.
- The time when a consumer switches his/her service provider.
- The mass of people who are ready to switch carriers.
- Cyclic activity that achieves nothing.
- I wished my brain would shut up and knew that soon I'd have to start tidying, but first I needed to rest, so I tried to quell the pointless churn behind my eyes and kept on trying (in a minute) until Vicky came back home.2007, Hari Kunzru, My Revolutions, page 102
- Getting the right manager has just been made more difficult by not having Champions League to offer. There will also be a huge churn of players after the lavish, unrewarding outlay this season.2023 April 18, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea Champions League exit: Where do 'disjointed, broken' Blues go from here?”, in BBC Sport
- The last grain cut at harvest; kern.
churn meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
churn in Hindi
- agitate rapidly
- मथना mathnā
- vessel for churning
- मथनी mathnī
churn in Tamil
- கரப்பு, கடைதல், தயிர்கடைதாழி, வெண்ணெய் கடை பொறி, தயிர்ப் பானை
churn in Marathi
- agitate rapidly
- घुसळणे ghusaḷṇe, मंथन manthan
churn in Urdu
- چرننگ کرنا
More languagesFewer languages
- churn in Bengali
- দুধ মন্থন করা, ঘোরানো
- churn in Telugu
- చిలుకు ciluku
- churn in Malayalam
- കടയുക kaṭayuka
- churn in Kannada
- ಕಡೆ, ಕಯ್, ಕಡಿ, ಕಡಯಿಸು
- churn in Gujarati
- વલોવવું valovvũ
- churn in Sanskrit
- मथ् math
- churn in Arabic
- مَخَاضَة maḵāḍa
- churn in Persian
- نهره nehre
- Sindhi
- फिटणी phitṇi
Examples of churn in a sentence
- Churned in his teeth, the foamy venom rose.1717, Joseph Addison, Metamorphoses:
- To set this matter in a clearer light before our readers, we will glance at a few of the different churns, now most prominently before the public—some valuable, some useless.1849 January 15, “A Glance at Patent Churns”, in Ohio Cultivator: Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture and Domestic Economy, volume 5...
- In the old days, milk trains consisted entirely of vans loaded with ten-gallon churns.1959 March, R. C. Riley, “Home with the milk”, in Trains Illustrated, page 155:
Synonyms of churn
Forms of churn
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | churns |
| present participle | churning |
| past participle | churned |
| past | churned |
| Noun | |
| plural | churns |
Origin of churn
Noun from Middle English chyrne, cherne, kyrne ( > Scots kirn), from Old English ċyrn, ċyrin, ċirin (“churn”), from Proto-Germanic *kirnijǭ (“churn”); verb from Middle English chyrnen from Old English ċernan, from Proto-Germanic *kirnijaną (“to churn, stir”), of unknown origin. Cognate with West Frisian tsjerne, Dutch karn, Walloon serene, German Karn, Kirne, Norwegian Bokmål kjerne, Danish kærne, Swedish kärna, Icelandic kirna.
Words formed from churn
Phrases with churn
Words that rhyme with churn
Questions about churn
- What does churn mean?
- Churn means to agitate rapidly and repetitively, or to stir with a rowing or rocking motion; generally applies to liquids, notably cream.
- What is churn in Hindi?
- Churn in Hindi is मथना (mathnā), मथनी (mathnī). See Churn meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use churn in a sentence?
- Churned in his teeth, the foamy venom rose.
- What part of speech is churn?
- Churn can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce churn?
- Churn is pronounced /tʃɜːn/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of churn?
- The past tense of churn is churned.
Words near churn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: churn (page history and authors); churn (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); churn (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); churn (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); കടയുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); churn (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); વલોવવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); मथ् (Sanskrit) (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: en-us-churn.ogg.
Cite this entry: “churn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/churn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.