Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A lane or narrow road.
Wiktionary
- n. Ireland A narrow, frequently unpaved, rural road in Ireland.
Etymologies
- Borrowing from Irish bóithrín, diminutive of bóthar ("road") (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A Kerry man's boat is a ship, his cabin is a house, his shrubs are trees, his "boreen" is an avenue, and, as a native bard declares, "all his hens are paycocks.”
Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
“It is true that when one has driven up the private road, be the same a mere "boreen" or a "shplendid avenue," the bell is found to be broken, the knocker wrenched off, the blinds hauled up awry, and the servants hard to be got at; but the householder is prosperous nevertheless.”
Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
“It was my car-driver, a teetotaller, opined on this "boreen," that the irreconcilable tenant, one Thomas Browne, dwelt.”
Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
“A little further on, still to the right of the road, branched off suddenly a narrow bridle-path, or "boreen," as it is called in this part of the country.”
Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
“boreen," and concluded that, as it was nearly impassable, it must lead to the home of the Irreconcilable.”
Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
“It resembles our little boreen, down to hedgerows of flowering whitethorn and grass growing in the middle of the road.”
“As you wandered down the boreen where the leprechaun was seen,”
“By this time night had completely fallen, and in going down a dark boreen she managed to escape from her companions altogether.”
“A party of five people -- the husbands, the son of one of them, and the two women came along the boreen, guided by the dim light of the farthing dip which is the only light the Irish farmer has yet been able to use.”
“Flynn's house, the dog leading the pack by not fifty yards, when I saw him cut across a field to the left, while the hounds tumbled into a little boreen that runs up from the railway-station and went streaking down it singing out as if they were on a breast-high scent and in view.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘boreen’.
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A taste for small things
Diminutives
screamlet, pip, purrlet, mannikin, nipperkin, munchkin, dodkin, elfkin, bootikin, dudeen, boreen, jackeen and 40 more...
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Most Obscure Words
acatalectic, acosmism, acuate, acuminate, adscititious, adytum, akratisma, alieniloquy, allelomorph, allochiria, allodium, alnage and 620 more...
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Words and phrases of Irish origin, or...
not necessarily eponyms, but might be
boycott, blarney, banshee, galore, keen, donnybrook, colleen, drumlin, phoney, clan, cairn, ceili and 122 more...
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The Pogues
transmetropolitan, lecher, queer, shite, whore, bastard, spew, bloody, waxie's dargle, farthing, pint, races and 91 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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Phrases and words I didn't know
give up the ghost, ninja'd, coal-hole, hotting up, chancer, clave, salaryman, turf accountant, cremains, autoclave, hummingbird mind, gank and 175 more...
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Tunie: Colcannon
I first heard this sung by Bob Hallett of Great Big Sea, though I know several other artists recorded it first.
Did you ever have colcannon made with lovely pickled cream
And the...cáilín, clúrachán, boreen, moon, a-courting, cry, bite, teacher, rule, slate, books, oxter and 19 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for boreen.
hernesheir From Irish Irish gaelic bóithrín. Rhymes with colleen, as in the lovely song "Star of the County Down". Jun 29, 2010
bilby "Then I heard her step that I knew so well on the boreen beside the house and I ran to the door, meaning to say I was sorry for the trouble we were giving her, but when I opened the door Denis called out her name in a loud voice, and the crying fit came on me, thinking how light-hearted we used to be together."
- Frank O'Connor, 'The Bridal Night'. Sep 5, 2008
sionnach Etymologically, boreen is related to the Irish word for cow, "bo". Allegedly, in order to qualify for the designation, a pathway had to be wide enough to accommodate one cow standing perpendicular to the path's direction and another cow in the direction of motion. Roughly speaking it had to be one and a half cows' lengths across.
(I'm not actually making this up, though my recollection of the details may not be perfect) Feb 22, 2007
chained_bear A lane, a narrow road; also transf. an opening in a crowd. (Used only when Irish subjects are referred to.)
They're the things that you see when you wake up and scream
The cold things that follow you down the boreen
They live in the small ring of trees on the hill
Up at the top of the field...
--"Sit Down by the Fire," the Pogues, c. 1988 Shane Macgowan Feb 7, 2007