Word.ws English Dictionary

O'Brien

UK/əˈbɹaɪən/US/oʊˈbɹaɪən/

O'Brien proper noun: a surname from Irish.

Proper noun

O'Brien (countable and uncountable, plural O'Briens)

  1. A surname from Irish.
    • Landlady: O'Brien? He don't live here any more. Not lived here for months. I made him sling his hook. Never paid his lodgings.2007 March 6, Julie Rutterford, Life on Mars, Season 2, Episode 3
  2. An unincorporated community in Shasta County, California.
  3. An unincorporated community in Suwannee County, Florida.
  4. A census-designated place in Josephine County, Oregon.
  5. A minor city in Haskell County, Texas.
  6. An unincorporated community in Barbour County, West Virginia.
  7. A town in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, also known as Eduardo O'Brien.

Forms of O'Brien

pluralO'Briens

Origin of O'Brien

Anglicisation of the Irish surname Ó Briain, meaning “descendant of Brian”.

Words formed from O'Brien

Phrases with O'Brien

Words that rhyme with O'Brien

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about O'Brien

What does O'Brien mean?
O'Brien means a surname from Irish.
What part of speech is O'Brien?
O'Brien is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce O'Brien?
O'Brien is pronounced /əˈbɹaɪən/ (UK).

Words near O'Brien in the dictionary

  1. O'Berrys
  2. O'Biden
  3. O'Bonsawin
  4. O'Boyle
  5. O'Brian
  6. O'Brien
  7. O'Brien County
  8. O'Brien potatoes
  9. O'Briens
  10. O'Bummer
  11. O'Callaghan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: O'Brien (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: “O'Brien.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/o%27brien. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.