Burn (landform)

A burn is a watercourse (in size from a large stream to a small river).

Etymology
The term burn is used in Scotland and England (especially North East England) and in parts of Ulster, Australia and New Zealand.

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 (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.

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

Blackburn
Broxburn
Bucks Burn
Burnside
Braid Burn
Dighty Burn
Burnfoot, Inishowen
Burn of Elsick
Burn of Pheppie
Burn of Muchalls
Bannockburn
Crawfordsburn
Gisburn
Hebburn
Jordan Burn
Kilburn (disambiguation)
Lyburn
Ouseburn
Seaburn
Seaton Burn
Shirburn
Tedburn
Tyburn
Westburn
Whitburn
Whitlawburn
Winkburn
Winterburn
Wooburn

References

External links

 Scottish Words and Place-Names:Place-Name Glossary

Category:Water streams
Category:Landforms
Category:Northumbrian folklore
Category:Rural Scotland
Category:Scots language
Category:Scottish English
Category:Scottish toponyms
Category:Rivers of Scotland
Category:Rivers of Northumberland
/
Category:Rivers of Ireland