borne

From Middle English boren, iborne, from Old English boren, ġeboren, past participle of Old English beran (“to carry, bear”).

• (horse–hoarse merger)
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɔːn/
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /boɹn/, [bo̞ɹn]

  • Audio (US):

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  • Homophones: Borgne, born, bourn, bourne, Bourne (horse–hoarse merger); bawn (non-rhotic, horse–hoarse merger)
  • Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)n
• (without the horse–hoarse merger)
  • (rhotic) IPA^(key): /boːɹn/
  • (non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /boən/

borne

1. past participle of bear
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Miranda: I ſhould ſinne / To thinke but Noblie of my Grand-mother, / Good wombes haue borne bad ſonnes.

   • 1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 21, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:

     “Can't you understand that love without confidence is a worthless thing—and that had you trusted me I would have borne any obloquy with you. […] ”

borne (not comparable)

1. carried, supported.
   • 1901, Joseph Conrad, Falk: A Reminiscence:

     In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick out far away down the reach his beard borne high up on the white structure, foaming up stream to anchor for the night.

   • 1881, Oscar Wilde, “[Rosa Mystica.] Rome Unvisited.”, in Poems, London: David Bogue, […], →OCLC, canto III, page 46:

     When, bright with purple and with gold,
     Come priest and holy Cardinal,
     And borne above the heads of all
     The gentle Shepherd of the Fold.

   • c. 2000, David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, section II:

     Irving is further required, as a matter of practice, to spell out what he contends are the specific defamatory meanings borne by those passages.

• Boner, Breon, Ebron, boner

Inherited from Old French bontie, bodne, from Medieval Latin (Merovingian) bodina, butina (“limit, boundary”), a Celtic/Transalpine Gaulish borrowing, from Proto-Celtic *bonnicca (“boundary”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn (“bottom, base”), see also *bundos.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /bɔʁn/

• Audio:

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• Audio (Switzerland (Valais)):

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• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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• Audio (France):

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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• Audio (France (Saint-Étienne)):

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• Rhymes: -ɔʁn

borne f (plural bornes)

1. bollard such as those used to restrict automobiles off a pedestrian area
2. territorial boundary marker
3. territorial or geographical border
4. milestone such as those alongside a roadway
5. (slang) a kilometre; a click
6. mark

   dépasser les bornes

   cross the mark

7. limit of a list or of an interval

   Prenez un nombre entre 0 et 100 (bornes incluses)

   Pick a number between 0 and 100, inclusive

   les lettres comprises entre A et D (bornes incluses)

   alphabetic characters from A to D

8. machine

   borne libre service

   self-service machine

• Roberts, Edward A. (2014), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN

• “borne”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

borne

1. (Cheshire, Yorkshire) alternative form of bourne

From Late Latin bodina, butina, from Transalpine Gaulish.

borne f (plural bornes)

1. (Jersey) boundary stone

From French borne,^[1] from Medieval Latin (Merovingian) bodina, butina (“limit, boundary”), a Celtic/Transalpine Gaulish borrowing, from Proto-Celtic *bonnicca (“boundary”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn (“bottom, base”), see also *bundos.^[2]

• IPA^(key): /ˈboɾne/ [ˈboɾ.ne]
• Rhymes: -oɾne
• Syllabification: bor‧ne

borne m (plural bornes)

1. each of the metallic terminals of certain electrical machines and apparatus, intended for the connection of conductive wires
2. special end of the spear used in jousting

• “borne”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025