Burn (landform)
In Scotland and England (especially North East England) and some parts of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, burn is a name for watercourses from large streams to small rivers. The term is also used in lands settled by the Scots and in other countries, notably in Otago, New Zealand, where much of the naming was done by the Northumbrian-born English surveyor and son of a Scot John Turnbull Thomson.
Its cognate in standard English is "bourn", "bourne", "borne", "born", which is retained in placenames like Bournemouth, King's Somborne, Holborn and also in the likes of de:Dortmund-Somborn and Paderborn in Germany. Both the English and German words derive from the Saxon "brunna".[1]
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" in placenames.)
Etymology
The word is of English derivation and so is in regular use by speakers of the Scots tongue.
A cognate in German is Born[2] (contemp. Brunnen), meaning "well", "spring" or "source".
Examples
- Blackburn
- Burnswark
- Bucks Burn
- Braid Burn
- Burn of Elsick
- Burn of Pheppie
- Burn of Muchalls
- Bannockburn
- Coburn
- Cocksburn
- Crawfordsburn
- Dryburn
- Gisburn
- Goldburn
- Hebburn
- Highburn
- Hipsburn
- Hutlerburn
- Kilburn
- Knockburn
- Langshawburn
- Luckenburn
- Lyburn
- Netherburn
- Otterburn
- Ouseburn
- Rastus Burn
- Seaton Burn
- Shirburn
- Tedburn
- Tyburn
- Winkburn
- Winterburn
- Woburn
- Wooburn