Newgrange

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A prehistoric stone passage tomb in County Meath, Ireland, built over five thousand years ago and famous for its winter solstice alignment
2. An ancient megalithic burial mound in eastern Ireland, notable for the sunlight that enters its inner chamber at the winter solstice
3. The Neolithic monument at Brú na Bóinne in County Meath, a large circular mound containing a long stone passage and chamber

Etymology: Newgrange is the name of a Neolithic passage tomb in County Meath, Ireland, and the name is a plain English compound: "new" plus "grange." A grange was a farm or outlying agricultural estate, and in medieval England and Ireland the term was especially associated with the lands run by monastic orders. The "new" here refers to a farm newly established on the demesne of the Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont during the Middle Ages, so the name records a medieval farm, not the far older monument it now labels. The name's Latin form, "Nova Grangia," is a calque: the English words were translated directly into Latin, and the Latin version was used in monastic records. The name thus attached itself to the surrounding fields, which were known as the Newgrange demesne, and eventually to the prehistoric mound standing among them. Its builders, who raised the tomb around 3200 BCE, had no connection to the medieval farm that gave it its name.