bawn

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɔːn/
• Rhymes: -ɔːn

Etymology 1

From Irish bán, alternative form of bábhún (“walled enclosure”).

Noun

bawn (plural bawns) (Ireland)

1. A cattle-fort; a building used to shelter cattle.
   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

     But these round hills and square bawnes, which you see so strongly trenched and throwne up

   • 1729, Jonathan Swift, The Grand Question Debated, Thomas Sheridan (editor), John Nichols (editor, revised edition), 1812, The British Classics, Volume 45: The works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D.: Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, Volume XI, page 163:

     The Grand Question Debated

     Whether Hamilton's Bawn Should be Turned into a Barrack or a Malt-house − 1729

     This Hamilton's bawn, while it sticks in my hand, / I lose by the house what I get by the land; / But how to dispose of it to the best bidder, / For a barrack or malthouse, we now must consider.

   • 1892, Joseph Jacobs (editor), Jack and His Master, Celtic Fairy Tales:

     When he was coming into the bawn at dinner-time, what work did he find Jack at but pulling armfuls of the thatch off the roof, and peeping into the holes he was making?

2. A defensive wall built around a tower house. It was once used to protect livestock during an attack.
   • 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 18:

     He [...] then made his way
     to where he belonged in Bronding country,
     home again, sure of his ground
     in strongroom and bawn.

   • 2004, Colm J. Donnelly, “Passage or Barrier? Communication between Bawn and Tower House in Late Medieval Ireland – the Evidence from County Limerick”, in Château Gaillard 21: Études de castellologie médiévale: La Basse-cour: Actes du colloque international de Maynooth (Irlande), 23-30 août 2002, page 57:

     The cattle, therefore, would be brought into the bawn at night, as is stated by the early 17th-century writer Fynes Moryson who wrote that the Irish cattle “eat only by day, and then are brought at evening within the bawns of castles, where they stand or lie all night in a dirty yard without so much as a lock of hay.”

Derived terms

• Hamiltonsbawn

Etymology 2

Verb

bawn

1. Pronunciation spelling of born.
   • 1897, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “[Pudd’nhead Wilson] Chapter II”, in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson: And the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 34:

     Bofe de same age, sir—five months. Bawn de fust o' Feb'uary.

   • 1899, Charles W. Chesnutt, Sis’ Becky’s Pickaninny:

     But ef it has ter be prove' ter folks w'at wa'n't bawn en raise' in dis naberhood, dey is a' easy way ter prove it.

   • 1900, [George] Bernard Shaw, “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion”, in Three Plays for Puritans: The Devil’s Disciple, Cæsar and Cleopatra, & Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, London: Grant Richards, […], published 1901, →OCLC, Act I, page 223:

     Yah! You oughter bin bawn a Christian, you ought. You knaow too mach.

Anagrams

• WNBA

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bau̯n/
• Rhymes: -au̯n

Verb

bawn

1. first-person singular imperfect subjunctive of bod

Synonyms

• byddwn

Mutation

Mutated forms of bawn

radical	soft	nasal	aspirate
bawn	fawn	mawn	unchanged

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Welsh.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Yola

Adjective

bawn

1. alternative form of baun
   • NOTES TO THE WEDDEEN O BALLYMORE

     (1) Garrane Bawn is Irish

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 98