| 释义 |
▪ I. barn, n.|bɑːn|
Forms: 1 bere-ern (bæren), 1–2 berern, 1–4 beren, 1–6 bern, 3 berrn, 4–6 berne, (5 beern, beyrne, baerne), 5–7 barne, 7– barn.
[OE. bęre-ern lit. ‘barley-place,’ f. bęre barley + ærn, ern, place, closet, store-room; reduced already in OE. to bęrern, bęren, bęrn, whence ME. bern, mod. barn.]
1. a. A covered building for the storage of grain; and, in wider usage, of hay, straw, flax, and other produce of the earth.
c950Lindisf. Gosp. Luke xii. 24 Ðæm ne is hordern ne ber-ern. c975Rushw. G. ibid., Bere-ern. c1000Ags. G. ibid., Nabbað hiᵹ heddern ne bern. c1200Ormin 10486 Sammenn alle þe clene corn & don itt inn hiss berrne. c1220Bestiary 263 O.E. Misc. 9 Ne bit ȝe (= she) nowt de barlic beren abuten. c1386Chaucer Wife's T. 15 Thropes and bernes, shepnes and dayeries. c1475in Wright Voc. 274 Orium, beyrne. 1489Caxton Faytes of A. ii. xxiv. 138 A grete baerne within the said forest. 1523Fitzherb. Husb. §26 [Rye] mowen..taketh more rowme in the barne than shorne corne dothe. 1551Robinson tr. More's Utop. 160 Corne or graine..in the rich men's bernes. 1610Shakes. Temp. iv. i. 111 Barnes, and Garners, neuer empty. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. i. 74 And bursts the crowded Barns, with more than promis'd Gains. 1820Wordsw. Sonn. Duddon xiii, One small hamlet.. Clustering with barn and byre, and spouting mill. 1872Jenkinson Eng. Lakes 24 The [Grasmere] island has a clump of firs and a grey barn upon it.
fig.a1520Myrr. Our Ladye 211 Aungels myghte gather them in to euerlastynge barnes.
b. Applied to: A barn-like building for worship.
a1721Prior To F. Shepherd, So at pure barn of Loud Non-con, Where with my grannam I have gone.
c. A stable or cattle-house. U.S.
1770J. R. Forster tr. P. Kalm's Trav. N. America I. 223 The barns had a peculiar kind of construction... In the middle was the threshing floor..on one side were stables for the horses, and on the other for the cows. 1828Mrs. Royall Black Bk. II. 71 Every farmer has his small wooden barn, under which name they include stables. 1901M. D. Babcock Thoughts 17 Locking a barn seems no longer commonplace when the horse is stolen. 1904N.Y. Even. Post 28 Jan. 1 Cattle were found frozen stiff in the barns by farmers this morning.
d. [Said to have originated in the phrase ‘as big as a barn’.] In nuclear physics, 10-24 sq. cm., a unit of area used in the measurement of the cross-section of a nucleus.
1947R. D. Evans in C. Goodman Sci. & Engin. Nucl. Power i. 15 This area has been dubbed the ‘barn’, 1 barn = 10-24 cm2 /nucleus. 1947C. Goodman Ibid. ix. 290 The nuclear cross section, ☌, in barns. 1950S. Glasstone Sourcebk. Atomic Energy x. 264/2 A unit, called a barn, equal to 10-24 sq. cm. per nucleus, has been adopted. note. The term ‘barn’ was proposed in 1942 by the American physicists M. G. Holloway and C. P. Baker, as a result of a broadly humorous association of ideas. It served the purpose of a code word..and seemed appropriate because ‘a cross section of 10-24 sq. cm. for nuclear processes was really as big as a barn’. 1957Sci. News XLV. 106 The cross sections of gadolinium, samarium, and europium are 30,000, 4,250, and 2,500 barns respectively.
2. Comb. and attrib., as barn barley, barn-builder, barn form, barn-loft, barn-sweepings; also barn-ball, a children's game of the United States (see quot. 1879); barn-boss U.S., a horse-keeper; barn-burner, nick-name of the radical section of the Democratic party in U.S.; barn-cellar, a room under a barn, generally used as a cow-house; barn chamber U.S., a loft above a barn; barn-floor, the floor of a barn, hence what is there stored; barnful, as much as a barn will contain; barn-gallon, a measure containing two imperial gallons, used in the milk-trade; barn-like, a., like, or like that of, a barn; barn-lot U.S., a piece of ground for or about a barn (see lot n. 6 a); barn-raising U.S., ‘the erection of the frame of a barn with the help of neighbours; a social gathering on this occasion’ (D.A.); barn(s)man, a labourer in a barn, a thresher; barn-owl, a British bird of prey (Strix flammea), also called White, Church, and Screech Owl; barn-shovel, one used for corn; barnstormer, (a) applied depreciatively to a strolling player; whence barn-storming; (b) U. S. Aeronaut. (see quot. 1928 and barnstorm v. 3); barn-swallow, the common house-swallow; barnward adv., towards the barn; barn-yard, (a) the enclosure round a barn, a farm-yard; (b) attrib. of behaviour, language, etc.: characterized by lack of morality or propriety; coarse, indecent, earthy (orig. U.S.).
1841New Orl. Picayune 25 May 2/2 Who has not played ‘*barn ball’ in his boyhood? 1879B. F. Taylor Summer-Savoury 122 The writer knew a boy..who never got farther than ‘barn-ball’, which means throwing a ball at the gable and catching it when it returns. 1901W. Churchill Crisis ix. 196 A tall man in his shirt sleeves was playing barn-ball with some boys.
1880Jefferies Gt. Estate 152 *Barn barley..i.e. that which had been stored in a barn.
1902S. E. White Blazed Trail xxix. 201 So Shearer had picked out a *barn-boss of his own.
a1610Babington Wks. (1622) 218 That rich *Barne-builder in the Gospell.
a1848N.Y. Tribune in Bartlett Dict. Amer. 23 This school of Democrats was termed *Barnburners, in allusion to the story of an old Dutchman, who relieved himself of rats by burning down his barns which they infested,—just like exterminating all banks and corporations, to root out the abuses connected therewith.
1842T. Parker in Weiss Life & Corr. I. 184 A bull..tied up in the corner of the *barn-cellar.
1838H. Colman Mass. Agric. Surv. Rep. 16 The best method of curing it [sc. herds grass]..is to..tie it in bundles; and set it upright in a *barn chamber.
1611Bible 2 Kings vi. 27 Whence shall I helpe thee? out of the *barne floore? 1863Kingsley Water-Bab. vii. 272 Her decks were swept as clean as a barn floor.
1847J. Yeowell Anc. Brit. Ch. xii. 129 Very old Welsh Churches are of the *barn form.
a1619M. Fotherby Atheom. ii. viii. §4 Not by the bushell..but by the whole *Barnefull.
1858Simmonds Dict. Trade 27/2 *Barn-gallon, a double gallon of milk. 1865W. White East. England II. xv. 217 The gallon being a ‘barn-gallon’ of seventeen pints.
1662Gerbier Princ. (1665) 36 Those *Barn-like Roofs of many Noble Persons Palaces. 1835Beckford Recoll. 174 The barn-like saloon on their ground-floor.
1837Carlyle Fr. Rev. III. iv. v. 235 In cellars, *barn-lofts, in caves.
1724New Hampsh. Prob. Rec. II. 250, I give to my Daughters..the other half part of my afores[aid] *barn Lott in Salsbury. 1932W. Faulkner Light in Aug. (1933) i. 12 When the wagon passes the house, goes on toward the barnlot.
c1800A. Carlyle Autobiog. (1860) 25, I took him for a grieve or *barnman. 1861Smiles Engineers II. 112 A sufficient number of barnsmen for thrashing straw.
1674Ray Eng. Birds 83 The common *Barn-owl or White Owl, Aluco minor. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. xvii. (1852) 378 The short-eared and white barn-owls of Europe.
1856T. D. Price MS. Diary 28 Apr. (D.A.), Went to D. D. Keller's *barn raising. 1952Economist 9 Aug. 340/1 The old custom of ‘barn-raising’, at which neighbours and friends volunteered their services, is coming back into fashion [in the U.S.A.].
1446Wills & Inv. N.C. I. (1835) 95 Whetridell..hopper, *barnshoile.
1859Hotten Dict. Mod. Slang 3 *Barn stormers, theatrical performers who travel the country and act in barns, selecting short and frantic pieces to suit the rustic taste. 1884Pall Mall G. 6 June 5/1 If this be barn-storming, Betterton and Garrick were barn-stormers. 1928Daily Mail 7 May 6/4 Barnstormers, itinerant flyers, appearing at fairs and race tracks, like Lindbergh in his earlier years. 1930Punch 19 Mar. 330/1 Those barn-stormers who tore the play's passions and the spectators' heart-strings to shreds.
1851D. Wilson Preh. Ann. Scot. (1863) I. 416 Less skill than..the common *barn-swallow displays in the construction of its nest.
1840Carlyle Heroes ii. 96 Chaff, chopped straw, *barn-sweepings.
1884Roe in Harper's Mag. July 247/2 The horses' heads were turned *barnward.
1513–75Diurn. Occurr. (1833) 49 Thay brunt tua *barny-yairdis in Nether Keith. 1850Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. vii. 49 A barn-yard belonging to a large farming establishment. 1938O. Nash I'm a Stranger here Myself 280 Some people calmly live a barnyard life because they find monogamy dull and arid. 1967R. K. Massie Nicholas & Alexandra xvi. 195 In polite conversation, Rasputin used coarse barnyard expressions. 1977Time 21 Nov. 70/2 A life that is full of the barnyard morality. 1981W. Safire in N.Y. Times Mag. 13 Dec. 16 What copy editors like to call ‘a barnyard epithet’.
▪ II. † barn, v. Obs.
[f. the n.]
To house or store in a barn; to garner. Often fig.
1593Shakes. Lucr. cxxiii, And useless barns the harvest of his wits. 1647Fuller Good Th. in Worse T. (1841) 110 Whose censures often barn up the chaff, and burn up the grain. 1702C. Mather Magn. Chr. III. iii. (1852) 559 To plant and dress, and barn and beat their corn.
▪ III. barn(e
obsolete form of bairn. |