English

Noun

byre ‎(plural byres)

1. (chiefly Britain) A barn, especially one used for keeping cattle in.
   • 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.

Translations

Anagrams

• yerb

Old English

Etymology 1

From Proto-Germanic *buriz ‎(“son”).

Noun

byre m ‎(nominative plural byras or byre)

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

Etymology 2

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

Noun

byre m ‎(nominative plural byras or byre)

1. mound

Etymology 3

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

Noun

byre m ‎(nominative plural byras or byre)

1. strong wind, storm

Descendants

• birr

Etymology 4

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

Noun

byre m ‎(nominative plural byras or byre)

1. time, opportunity; occurrence

Derived terms

• ambyre — favorable, fair

Etymology 5

Perhaps related to Old English būr

Noun

bȳre n ‎(nominative plural bȳru)

1. stall, shed, hut

Derived terms

• cūbȳre m — cow-byre, cow-shed
• nēahgebȳren, nēhhegebȳren f — neighbor

Descendants

• byre, see above