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 Born1 (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.
French also uses Bourne or Borne in watercourse names, e.g. in Gorges de la Bourne. 3
Examples
- Blackburn
- Broxburn
- Bucks Burn
- Burnside
- Braid Burn
- Dighty Burn
- Burn Dale, East Donegal
- Burnfoot, Inishowen
- Burn of Elsick
- Burn of Pheppie
- Burn of Muchalls
- Bannockburn
- Crawfordsburn
- Cronaniv Burn, Gaoth Dobhair
- Gisburn
- Hebburn
- Jordan Burn
- Kilburn (disambiguation)
- Lyburn
- Ouseburn
- Roseburn
- Routeburn Track
- Saltburn-by-the-Sea
- Seaburn
- Seaton Burn
- Shirburn
- Tedburn
- Tyburn
- Wedderburn
- Westburn
- Whitburn
- Whitlawburn
- Winkburn
- Winterburn
- Wooburn
References
References
- "DWDS | Suchergebnisse für Born" (in German). Dwds.de. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
- "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
- "Étymologie des noms de la Drôme" (in French). Retrieved 16 April 2026.