bourne

See also: Bourne, bouřné, and bouřně

English

Pronunciation

(horse–hoarse merger)
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɔːn/
- (General American) IPA^(key): /boɹn/, [bo̞ɹn], /bʊɹn/^[1]^[2]^[3]
- Homophone: borne (see there for more)
- Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)n
(without the horse–hoarse merger)
- (rhotic) IPA^(key): /boːɹn/
- (non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /boən/

Etymology 1

From Middle French borne, from Old French bodne, from Medieval Latin bodina, a word of unknown ultimate origin, but possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn (“bottom, base”), see also Proto-Celtic *bundos.^[4]

Noun

bourne (countable and uncountable, plural bournes)

(countable, archaic) A boundary; a limit.
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], signatures G2, recto – G2, verso:
  [T]he dread of ſomething after death, / The vndiſcouer'd country, from whoſe borne / No trauiler returnes, puzzels the will, […]
- 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “[Our Lady of the Snows.] Father Apollinaris.”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 91:
  [T]hough I did not stop in my advance, yet I went on slowly, like a man who should have passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into the country of the dead.
- 1889, Alfred Tennyson, Crossing the Bar:
  For though from out our bourne of Time and Place,
  The flood may bear me far,
  I hope to see my Pilot face to face
  When I have crossed the bar.
(archaic) A goal or destination.
- 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 12:
  I passed through many beautiful and majestic scenes; but my eyes were fixed and unobserving. I could only think of the bourne of my travels, and the work which was to occupy me whilst they endured.

Etymology 2

From Middle English bourne, from Old English burna. Doublet of burn.

Noun

bourne (plural bournes)

A stream or brook in which water flows only seasonally; a small stream or brook.

Derived terms

(seasonal stream): nailbourne, winterbourne
(placenames): Middlebourne

Related terms

bourn (“small stream”), burn (“stream”)

References

^ “bourne”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present. (for "boundary; destination")
^ “bourne”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present. (for both "boundary" and "stream")
^ “bourne”, in Collins English Dictionary, 2011–present. (for both "boundary" and "stream")
^ Mann, S. E. (1963). Armenian and Indo-European: Historical Phonology. United Kingdom: Luzac, p. 73

Anagrams

unbore, unrobe

Middle English

Alternative forms

borne, burne
burn, bwrne (Northern); boerne, buerne (Northwest Midland)

Etymology

Inherited from Old English burna, burne,^[1]^[2] from Proto-West Germanic *brunnō, from Proto-Germanic *brunnô, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₁wr̥.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈbuːrn(ə)/^[3], (Northern) /ˈburn(ə)/

Noun

bourne (plural bournes) (especially Northern, West Midland)

A stream or river; a watercourse (regardless of size)
A lake or sea; a waterbody.

Usage notes

In bynames recorded in the subsidy rolls of Northern England from 1290-1350, this word is mostly restricted to County Durham and Northumberland (though an instance is also recorded in Cumberland); this likely reflects local vernacular practice since it aligns with modern dialectal evidence; elsewhere the usual terms were bek and brok.^[4]

Descendants

English: bourne, bourn; burn
Middle Scots: burn, burne
- Scots: burn

References

^ “bǒurn(e, burn(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
^ Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany (2019), “borne n”, in The Gersum Project ⁠‎^[1], University of Cambridge, University of Cardiff, and the University of Sheffield.
^ Jordan, Richard (1974), Eugene Crook, transl., Handbook of the Middle English Grammar: Phonology (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica; 218)‎^[2], The Hague: Mouton & Co. N.V., →DOI, § 65, page 38.
^ Kristensson, Gillis (1979), “A Piece of Middle English Word Geography”, in English Studies, volume 60, number 3, Routledge, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 256-257.

[1] “bourne”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present. (for "boundary; destination")

[2] “bourne”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present. (for both "boundary" and "stream")

[3] “bourne”, in Collins English Dictionary, 2011–present. (for both "boundary" and "stream")

[4] Mann, S. E. (1963). Armenian and Indo-European: Historical Phonology. United Kingdom: Luzac, p. 73

[5] “bǒurn(e, burn(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

[6] Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany (2019), “borne n”, in The Gersum Project ⁠‎^[1], University of Cambridge, University of Cardiff, and the University of Sheffield.

[7] Jordan, Richard (1974), Eugene Crook, transl., Handbook of the Middle English Grammar: Phonology (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica; 218)‎^[2], The Hague: Mouton & Co. N.V., →DOI, § 65, page 38.

[8] Kristensson, Gillis (1979), “A Piece of Middle English Word Geography”, in English Studies, volume 60, number 3, Routledge, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 256-257.

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