Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A mound of stones erected as a memorial or marker.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A heap of stones; especially, one of a class of large heaps of stones common in Great Britain, particularly in Scotland and Wales, and generally of a conical form. They are of various sizes. Some are evidently sepulchral, containing urns, stone chests, bones, etc. Some were erected to commemorate a great event, others appear to have had a religious significance, while the modern cairn is generally set up as a landmark, or to arrest the attention, as in surveying, or in leaving a record of all exploring party or the like. See
barrow .
Wiktionary
- n. A rounded or conical heap of stones erected by early inhabitants of the British Isles, apparently as a sepulchral monument.
- n. A pile of stones heaped up as a landmark, to guide travelers on land or at sea, or to arrest attention, as in surveying, or in leaving traces of an exploring party, etc.
- n. A cairn terrier.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A rounded or conical heap of stones erected by early inhabitants of the British Isles, apparently as a sepulchral monument.
- n. A pile of stones heaped up as a landmark, or to arrest attention, as in surveying, or in leaving traces of an exploring party, etc.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a mound of stones piled up as a memorial or to mark a boundary or path
- n. small rough-haired breed of terrier from Scotland
Etymologies
- From Scots cairn, from Scottish Gaelic carn ("heap of stones"); compare Old Irish carn, Welsh carn, probably from a Proto-Celtic word meaning ‘horn’. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English carne, from Scottish Gaelic carn, from Old Irish. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Ah, woe! the cairn is over Conn – his hundred battles done,”
“i met her in cairn's, once, some years ago! really nice woman.”
“It may refer to the cairn thrown over the mythical giant Rhitta Gawr after his defeat by King Arthur.”
“Building the cairn was a fine warming jab, but the ice on our whiskers often took some ten minutes thawing out.”
“Here stood an emblem of the sun, and on the cairn was a sacred fire, which had been kept burning through the year.”
Our Holidays Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas
“It is curious that the drift to leeward of the cairn, that is”
“First, the causeways may have probably been made "during the construction of the tower with its central pole," (here the cairn is a habitable beacon, habitable on all hypotheses,) or, again,”
“Surmounting the cairn was a cross of cedar, inscribed with the words: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.””
“Now there is very little that can be called conventional in a mere stone pillar, or in a cairn, that is, an artificial heap of stones.”
Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. Essays on Literature, Biography, and Antiquities
“A cairn is a heap of stones, such as is reared in the mountains of Scotland and of Switzerland by the voluntary additions of every passer by, to commemorate a spot marked as the scene of some accident or disaster.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cairn’.
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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forms/acts: art
threnody, eisegesis, imbricate, screed, lapis, requiem, colophon, homunculus, deus ex machina, apophthegm, anastrophe, anaphora and 47 more...
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Naturals
dogtooth violet, adder's-tongue, ribbon fern, breadberry, echinate, stamen, aeolian, boreas, chinook, Eurus, firmament, edentata and 35 more...
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RealLifePixel's Bad-Ass Words
Words so awesome they'll kick your eyeballs' asses!
cucurbitaceous, sacerdotal, loudhailer, bildungsroman, sublation, marmoreal, recusant, velleity, hardscrabble, malinger, miasma, brennschluss and 76 more...
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Archaeology
Words for shovelbums!
trowel, mattock, chopper, n-transform, c-transform, taphonomy, processual, post-processual, microarchaeology, site, horizon, battleship curve and 33 more...
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ancient signs
ouroboros, calypso, la sirene, Medusa, chthonic, aureole, colophon, succubus, peri, homunculus, zephyr, numinous and 56 more...
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Poetic
the blue hour, dinner-pail, long-drawn, pettifog, spoonmeat, crawler, eructate, voiced, medial, tessellated, eyeballs, amphigory and 48 more...
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euphonic logorrhea
cephalopodous, plumulaceous, oblomovism, etiolation, pavonine, somnolent, logorrhea, fulguration, gossamer, prestidigitation, daffodil, inchoate and 174 more...
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snarkout's Words
agenbite, scandent, vulpine, ratel, corvid, magpie, meline, musteline, ecdysiast, waxwing, abecedarian, guillotine and 111 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (C)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
cacophony, cad, cajole, calamity, camomile, camphor, candlemas, candy apple, canopy, canticle, caparison, caravan and 304 more...
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cairn
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Word of the day.
Some days, there will be a word. That word is the word of the day. Other days shall remain wordless. That's just the way things go.
petulant, anisometropia, zoroaster, cram, affinity, proprietary, cupertino effect, sidereal, schmutz, icosanoids, vendetta, bougie and 137 more...
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artoparts's Words
illation, finite, edify, abide, abrade, vouch, amiss, vociferate, perusing, techantiquery, rigamarole, holon and 615 more...
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dann's words
just some nice words that i like.
beamish, snark, sundry, contrariwise, salsify, cephalopod, omphaloskepsis, grok, resistentialism, peristerophobia, aglet, ferrule and 125 more...
Tweets
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reallifepixel Wikipedia: cairn
Jan 18, 2009roseandivy Aren't cairns also connected to Hermes in Greek mythology? Apr 9, 2008