Bawn

From Irish bábhún ("walled enclosure").

Full definition of bawn

Noun

1. A cattle-fort; a building used to shelter cattle.
• 1729, Jonathan Swift, The Grand Question Debated, (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 DebatedWhether Hamilton's Bawn Should be Turned into a Barrack or a Malt-house − 1729This 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), , '',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.
• 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.”

Verb

1. Eye dialect of born
• 1894, Mark Twain, , Chapter 2: Driscoll Spares His Slaves,"Bofe de same age, sir —five months. Bawn de fust o' Feb'uary."
• 1899, Charles W. Chesnutt, ,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, , Act I,Yah! You oughter bin bawn a Christian, you ought. You knaow too mach.

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