Burn (landform)

Views of Usway Burn

Usway Burn is a tributary of River Coquet in Northumberland

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 Born^[1] (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.)

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
• Routeburn Track
• Seaburn
• Seaton Burn
• Shirburn
• Tedburn
• Tyburn
• Westburn
• Whitburn
• Whitlawburn
• Winkburn
• Winterburn
• Wooburn

References

External links

• Scottish Words and Place-Names:Place-Name Glossary

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