Word.ws English Dictionary

sarsen

/ˈsɑː(ɹ)sən/

sarsen noun: any of various blocks of sandstone found in various locations in southern England.

Noun

sarsen (plural sarsens)

  1. Any of various blocks of sandstone found in various locations in southern England.
    • The stones, called sarsens, came from the nearby Marlborough Downs, and all are naturally shaped.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 42, concerning Avebury
    • The study pinpointed the source of the sarsens, a mystery that has long bedeviled geologists and archaeologists.2020 July 29, Franz Lidz, “Whence Came Stonehenge’s Stones? Now We Know”, in New York Times

Synonyms of sarsen

All synonyms of sarsen

Forms of sarsen

pluralsarsens

Origin of sarsen

From Saracen (“Muslim”), by extension, “non-Christian, pagan”.

Questions about sarsen

What does sarsen mean?
Sarsen means any of various blocks of sandstone found in various locations in southern England.
What part of speech is sarsen?
Sarsen is a noun.
How do you pronounce sarsen?
Sarsen is pronounced /ˈsɑː(ɹ)sən/.
What is the plural of sarsen?
The plural of sarsen is sarsens.

Words near sarsen in the dictionary

  1. Sarsden stones
  2. Sarsdens
  3. sarse
  4. sarsed
  5. Sarsee
  6. sarsen
  7. sarsenet
  8. sarsenets
  9. sarsens
  10. sarses
  11. Sarsfield

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sarsen (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-ie-sarsen.wav.

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