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Burn (landform)

Views of Usway Burn
Usway Burn is a tributary of River Coquet in Northumberland

In local usage, a burn is a kind of watercourse. The term applies to a large stream or a small river. The word is used in Scotland and England (especially North East England) and in parts of Ulster, Kansas, Australia and New Zealand.

Etymology

The cognate of burn in standard English is "bourn", "bourne", "borne", "born", which is retained in placenames like Bournemouth, King's Somborne, Holborn, Melbourne. A cognate in German is Born[1] (contemp. Brunnen), meaning "well", "spring" or "source", which is retained in placenames like Paderborn in Germany. Both the English and German words derive from the same Proto-Germanic root.[2]

Scots Gaelic has the word bùrn, also cognate, but which means "fresh water"; the actual Gaelic for a "burn" is allt (sometimes anglicised as "ault" or "auld" in placenames.)

Examples

References

  1. ^ "DWDS | Suchergebnisse für Born" (in German). Dwds.de. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  2. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
Look up bùrn or burn#Noun in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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