different between bawn vs tawn

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??n/
• Rhymes: -??n

Etymology 1

From Irish bábhún (“walled enclosure”).

Noun

bawn (plural bawns)

1. A cattle-fort; a building used to shelter cattle.

   • But these round hills and square bawnes, which you see so strongly trenched and throwne up

   • 1729, Jonathan Swift, The Grand Question Debated, Thomas Sheridan (editor), John Nichols (editor, revised edition), 1812, The British Classics, Volume 45: The works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D.: Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, Volume XI, page 163:

     The Grand Question Debated

     Whether Hamilton's Bawn Should be Turned into a Barrack or a Malt-house ? 1729

     This Hamilton's bawn, while it sticks in my hand, / I lose by the house what I get by the land; / But how to dispose of it to the best bidder, / For a barrack or malthouse, we now must consider.

   • 1892, Joseph Jacobs (editor), Jack and His Master, Celtic Fairy Tales:

     When he was coming into the bawn at dinner-time, what work did he find Jack at but pulling armfuls of the thatch off the roof, and peeping into the holes he was making?

2. A defensive wall built around a tower house. It was once used to protect livestock during an attack.
   • 2004, Colm J. Donnelly, Passage or Barrier? Communication between Bawn and Tower House in Late Medieval Ireland – the Evidence from County Limerick, in Château Gaillard 21: Études de castellologie médiévale: La Basse-cour: Actes du colloque international de Maynooth (Irlande), 23-30 août 2002, page 57:

     The cattle, therefore, would be brought into the bawn at night, as is stated by the early 17th-century writer Fynes Moryson who wrote that the Irish cattle “eat only by day, and then are brought at evening within the bawns of castles, where they stand or lie all night in a dirty yard without so much as a lock of hay.”

Etymology 2

Participle

bawn

1. Pronunciation spelling of born.
   • 1899, Charles W. Chesnutt, Sis’ Becky’s Pickaninny:

     But ef it has ter be prove' ter folks w'at wa'n't bawn en raise' in dis naberhood, dey is a' easy way ter prove it.

Anagrams

• WNBA

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bau?n/

Verb

bawn

1. first-person singular imperfect subjunctive of bod

Synonyms

• byddwn

Mutation

English

Etymology 1

Alteration of tan, influenced by tawny.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t??n/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /t?n/
• (Canada, cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /t?n/
• Homophone: torn (non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)

Verb

tawn (third-person singular simple present tawns, present participle tawning, simple past and past participle tawned)

1. (transitive) To tan, make tawny.

Noun

tawn (plural tawns)

1. (rare) A tan.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 5:

     In the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached withal; HE doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore.

Etymology 2

From town.

Proper noun

tawn

1. (Bermuda, colloquial, uncountable) Hamilton (the capital city of Bermuda).

Holonyms

• Bermy, de rock

Noun

tawn (plural tawns)

1. (Bermuda, countable) Pronunciation spelling of town.

Anagrams

• Want, wa'n't, wan't, want

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tau?n/

Etymology 1

Verb

tawn

1. first-person plural present/future and imperative of tewi

Etymology 2

Verb

tawn

1. first-person singular counterfactual conditional of bod (used after pe (“if”), which can also be omitted)