English

Noun

mawn ‎(plural mawns)

1. (Scotland, dialect) A maund; a basket or hamper.
   • 1887, Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders, Harper & Brothers:

     An apple-mill and press had been erected on the spot, to which some men were bringing fruit from divers points in mawn-baskets, while others were grinding them, and others wringing down the pomace, whose sweet juice gushed forth into tubs and pails.

2. A ghost.
   • 2006, Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, University of Adelaide:

     None of the natives who had come in the boat would touch the body, or even go near it, saying, the mawn would come; that is literally, ‘the spirit of the deceased would seize them’.

Welsh

Verb

mawn

1. Nasal mutation of bawn.

Yola

Noun

mawn

1. Alternative form of mawen

References

• J. Poole W. Barnes, A Glossary, with Some Pieces of Verse, of the Old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy (1867)