Barne

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a young child or offspring ; an old variant spelling of the word for a farm building used to store grain
2. A child, especially a young one, in older English ; a dated form of the word for a storehouse for crops and hay
3. An old word meaning a young person or offspring ; a former spelling of the term for a large outbuilding for grain or livestock

Etymology: The word here is the obsolete spelling of "barn," and its story is a surprise: the building takes its name from barley. Old English "bere-ærn" joined "bere," meaning barley, with "ærn," a dwelling or storehouse, so the original sense was a place for storing grain. Its roots go back to a prehistoric verb meaning "to rest," since a storehouse was a place where harvest was kept at rest until needed. Spelled "barne," the form was a middle stage in the word's contraction. Middle English wrote "barn," "bern," and "bærn" interchangeably, and the Old English "bearn" shows the earlier shortening of the compound. Note that a separate, unrelated word lies behind a second meaning of this spelling: Old English "bearn" meant "child," and it survives as "bairn," a doublet of the same form, with cognates in Old Norse "barn" and West Frisian "bern."

Synonyms: bairn, child