byre

From Middle English bire, bier, byr, from Old English bȳre.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaɪɚ/
• Rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)

byre (plural byres)

1. (chiefly British) 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: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     ’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.

• cowbarn, cowhouse

• cowshed

• Brey, Byer, Erby, yerb

From Proto-West Germanic *burī (early *burijaz), from Proto-Germanic *buriz (“son”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈby.re/

byre m (nominative plural byras or byre)

1. child, son, descendant; young man, youth

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈby.re/

byre m (nominative plural byras or byre)

1. mound

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈby.re/

byre m (nominative plural byras or byre)

1. strong wind, storm

• Middle English: bir
  • English: birr

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈby.re/

byre m (nominative plural byras or byre)

1. time, opportunity; occurrence

• ambyre (“favorable, fair”)

Probably related to Old English būr. Perhaps identical to the word for a farm or dwelling in German -büren, Dutch -buren.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbyː.re/

bȳre n (nominative plural bȳru)

1. stall, shed, hut

• cūbȳre m (“cow-byre, cow-shed”)

• English: byre

From Old English bȳre, but possibly influenced in usage by Gaelic "bò" meaning a cow.

byre (plural byres)

1. A cattle shed or outhouse

• Byreman, cattleherd
• Byregraip, a dung fork.