byre

Etymology

From Old English bȳre

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)

Noun

byre (plural byres)

1. (chiefly Britain) A barn, especially one used for keeping cattle in.
   • 1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part II:

     It was here in the kitchen, in the passage

     In the mews in the harn in the byre in the market place ...

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess‎:

     ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’

   • 1999, Neil Gaiman, Stardust, page 9 (2001 Perennial Edition):

     The visitors came up the narrow road through the forest from the south; they filled the spare-rooms, they bunked out in cow byres and barns.

Anagrams

• Brey, Byer, Erby, yerb

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbyre/

Etymology 1

From Proto-Germanic *buriz (“son”).

Etymology 2

From Proto-Germanic *buriz (“hill, elevation”).

Etymology 3

From Proto-Germanic *buriz (“favourable wind”).

Etymology 4

From Proto-Germanic *burjaz (“opportunity”), related to Old English byrian (“to come up, occur”).

Etymology 5

Perhaps related to Old English būr