barn

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /bɑːn/, US /bɑːrn/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old English bere-ærn (“barley house”) (about 950), contracted to bern,^[2][3][4] from bere, barley, and ærn, house, storeroom,^[2][3][4] which is metathesized from *rasn, cognate with Old Norse rann, large house, and Gothic razn, house.^[3][2][4] The same element is in Old English sealtærn, saltworks, and horsern, stable.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A covered building for storing grain: about 950.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that barley was the chief grain crop in Anglo-Saxon England.^[3] In the United States a barn is also a stable or cattle house (1770),^[5] and a large shed for railway cars or buses.^[6][7] A large, bare building is called a barn.^[6][7] The verb, to store in a barn, is from 1593.^[5][8] In nuclear physics, the barn, a unit of area for cross-sections, is from 1947, said to come from the phrase as big as a barn or barn door.^[5][9]

Timeline

• c. 950 – bere-ærn.^[2]
• 1593 – to barn (verb).^[5]
• 1770 – a stable (US).^[5]
• 1947 – a unit in nuclear physics.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A large farm building for storing grain, hay or other produce and housing livestock.
2. (US, Canada) A large shed for railway cars, buses or trucks.
3. A large, bare or unattractive building.
4. (physics) A unit of area for nuclear cross-sections, 10⁻²⁸ square metres.

Word family

• barnlike
• barnboard
• barnburner
• barnstorm
• barnwood
• barnyard
• carbarn

Related words

• barley
• bere

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press