Etymology: Common Germanic: the Old English burna weak masculine, burne weak feminine, burn strong feminine (apparently not distinguished in sense) correspond to Old Frisian burna (masculine), Middle Dutch borne (masculine), Dutch born, Middle Low German borne, born (masculine), modern German (poetic) born (masculine), which are metathetic forms of the words appearing as Old High German brunno, Gothic brunna weak masculine, Dutch bron (masculine), Old Norse brunn-r strong masculine, representing Old Germanic types *brunnon-, *brunno-z. The primitive and prevailing sense of the Germanic word is ‘spring, fountain’, of which there are some traces in Old English, the word being used to render Latin fons of the Vulgate. A connection is often assumed with brunn- ablaut-stem of Old Germanic *brin-n-an burn v.¹, on the supposition that that root had originally the wider sense ‘well up, be in commotion’, applicable to water as well as to fire; but of this there is no actual evidence. Curtius and others have regarded the noun as cognate with Greek ϕρέαρ a well, supposing the root to be the same with that of Latin fervēre to boil up; but the form of the Germanic word does not permit this explanation.

Etymology: Contracted < burden n.

Etymology: < burn v.¹ The earlier brenne derives from the Middle English form brenn-en of the verb: it took the place of the original noun bryne , brene , brune n.¹

Etymology: The modern verb represents two earlier verbs, viz. (1) the intransitive strong verb, Gothic brinnan, (brann, brunnum; brunnans), Old Norse brinnan (later brennan), Old Saxon, Old High German, Middle High German brinnan, Old English brinnan, by metathesis *birnan, bernan, beornan, (bran, barn, born, bearn; burnon, bornen) ‘ardere’; and (2) the derived factitive weak verb, Gothic brannjan (brannida, branniþs), Old Norse brenna, Old Saxon, Old High German brenn(i)an, (Middle High German and German brennen), Old English bærnan (by metathesis for bręnnan), bærnde, ‘urere’. Beornan and bærnan were still distinct in Old English, but ran together early in the Middle English period. Middle English had four types of the present stem, bern-, brin(n-, barn-, bren(n-, the two former of which appear to represent the intransitive, and the third the transitive Old English verb; bren(n- appears to be mainly the Old Norse brenna, but may partly have originated by metathesis < bern-. Of the original strong verb, the strong past tense does not appear later than Layamon, and the distinction of transitive and intransitive was soon lost, the different types being used indiscriminately as to sense, though with dialectal preferences. Brenne, brent was the most common type in late Middle English, and even down to the 16th cent., when it was somewhat abruptly dispossessed by burn, burnt, apparently the descendant of the earlier bern-, birn-, though the continuity is not very clearly made out, as, between the 13th and 16th centuries, this type is scarcely recorded in Scottish writers. In the Germanic brinn-an it is considered that only brin- ( < Aryan *bhren) belongs to the root, the second n being originally a present suffix: compare Old English bryne < Germanic *bruni-z burning. The root does not appear outside Germanic: the comparisons often made rest on the untenable assumption that the n of brin- is not radical. The distinction in usage between the two modern forms of the past tense and past participle is difficult to state with precision. Burnt is now the prevailing form, and its use is always permissible; burned is slightly archaic, and somewhat more formal in effect; it occurs more frequently as past tense, or in combination with the auxiliary have than as participial adjective.

Etymology: < Old French burnir, variant of brunir to burnish v.¹, originally to brown, < brun brown adj.