Word.ws English Dictionary

harn

harn noun: brain.

Noun

harn (plural harns)

  1. (archaic, dialectal, in plural, often, rare) Brain.
    • And under George I sat wi' joy
      Since ere I wore my harn toy.1828, William Gordon, Original Poems on Various Subjects, page 194
    • […] where they struck, hurt, and wounded the said Duncan MacAulay in his head through the harn (brain) pan therof, the said John dhu MacGregor behind his shoulderblade, wherethro' his lights and entrails might be seen, […]1898, Amelia Georgiana M. MacGregor, History of the clan Gregor, volume 1, page 230

Forms of harn

pluralharns
alternative form (obsolete)harne

Origin of harn

From Middle English *harn (attested in harnepan), from Old English hærn (“brain”), from Proto-West Germanic *herʀn, from Proto-Germanic *hersô (“brain”).

Words formed from harn

Questions about harn

What does harn mean?
Harn means brain.
What part of speech is harn?
Harn is a noun.
What is the plural of harn?
The plural of harn is harns.

Words near harn in the dictionary

  1. Harmsen
  2. Harmsens
  3. Harmses
  4. Harmston
  5. Harmsworth
  6. harn
  7. harn-pan
  8. harn-pans
  9. Harnack
  10. Harnack's curve theorem
  11. Harnacks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: harn (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: “harn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/harn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.