barn
/[ˈbɑɹn]/
Forms
- Plural
- barns
- present (v1)
- barn
- past (v2)
- barned
- past participle (v3)
- barned
- present participle
- barning
- 3rd person singular
- barns
Definitions
1.A building, often found on a farm, used for storage or keeping animals such as cattle.
- One day I was out in the barn and he drifted in. I was currying the horse and he set down on the wheelbarrow and begun to ask questions.
2.A unit of surface area equal to 10⁻²⁸ square metres.
- We stored the hay in the barn.
3.An arena.(informal)
- Maple Leaf Gardens was a grand old barn.
4.A warm and cozy place, especially a bedroom; a roost.(slang)
- We stored the hay in the barn.
1.To lay up in a barn.
- Hypocrites, in like manner, so act holiness that they pass for saints before men, whose censures often barn up the chaff, and burn up the grain.
Frequency
Overall
Rare· #4743
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Rare
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
From Middle English barn, bern, bærn, from Old English bearn, bern, contracted forms of Old English berern, bereærn (“barn, granary”), compound of bere (“barley”) and ærn, ræn (“dwelling, barn”), from Proto-West Germanic *raʀn, from Proto-Germanic *razną (compare Old Norse rann), from pre-Germanic *h₁rh̥₁-s-nó-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁erh₁- (“to rest”).