linn

• IPA^(key): /lɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Homophones: lin, Lynn, lyn
• Rhymes: -ɪn

From Middle English *linne, from Old English hlynn (“torrent”).

linn (plural linns)

1. (Scotland, Northern England, Wales) A waterfall or cataract (torrent of water running over a rocky bed), or a ravine down which such a waterfall rushes.
   • 1814, J. H. Craig [pseudonym; James Hogg], The Hunting of Badlewe: A Dramatic Tale, London: H[enry] Colburn; Edinburgh: G. Goldie, →OCLC, page 1; quoted in “The Hunting of Badlewe, a Dramatic Tale. 8vo. Edin. 1814. [From the Scottish Review.]”, in The Analectic Magazine, Containing Selections from Foreign Reviews and Magazines, together with Original Miscellaneous Compositions, volume V (New Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: Published and sold by Moses Thomas, […], May 1815, →OCLC, pages 353–354:

     What seek we here / Amid this waste where desolation scowls, / And the red torrent, brawling down the linn, / Sings everlasting discord?

   • 1844 December, “The Legend of Stumpie's Brae”, in The Dublin University Magazine, page 720:

     "For it's o'er the bank, and it's o'er the linn,
     "And it's up to the meadow ridge—"
     "Ay," quo' the Stumpie hirpling in,

   • 1866, John Harland, Lancashire Lyrics: Modern Songs & Ballads of the County Balatine, section 85:

     And the roaring of the linn.

   • 1896, Lewis Proudlock, The Borderland Muse, page 51:

     Hear! now, Yon linn's melodious thunder!

• lin, lyn, lynn

From Scottish Gaelic or Irish linn (“pool, pond”), or else a Brythonic source such as Cumbric *lınn, all from Proto-Celtic *lindos (“lake, liquid”). Conflated to some extent with linn (“waterfall”).

linn (plural linns)

1. (Scotland, Northern England, Wales) A pool of water, especially one formed and agitated by the water from a cascade.
   • 1812, “Poems”, in Forbes, section 49:

     There frisks the freckl'd finny tribe,
     In linns both wide and steep.

   • 1823, Galt, Gilhaize, section XXVIII:

     In the clear linn the trouts shuttled from stone and crevice.

   • 1868 September 24, James Hardy, addressed delivered at Chirnside, quoted in the History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, volume 5, page 386:

     The pool is there — the true linn, in the original acceptance of the word — dark and bottomless.

   • 1885, Robert Louis Stevenson, Prince Otto:

     A trellised path led down into the valley of the brook, and he turned to follow it. The stream was a breakneck, boiling Highland river. Hard by the farm, it leaped a little precipice in a thick grey-mare's tail of twisted filaments, and then lay and worked and bubbled in a linn. Into the middle of this quaking pool a rock protruded, shelving to a cape; and thither Otto scrambled and sat down to ponder.

   • 1894, Haliburton, Furth, 177:

     His successful angler landing the linn-lier [fish that inhabits a pool of water].

   • 1896, Crockett, Grey Man, vii:

     The running of deep water in a linn.

• lin

From Middle High German linde, from Old High German lind, lindi, from Proto-West Germanic *linþ(ī), from Proto-Germanic *linþaz. Compare German lind.

linn

1. (Erzgebirgisch) mild, gentle

Hendrik Heidler (11 June 2020), Hendrik Heidler's 400 Seiten: Echtes Erzgebirgisch: Wuu de Hasen Hoosn haaßn un de Hosen Huusn do sei mir drhamm: Das Original Wörterbuch: Ratgeber und Fundgrube der erzgebirgischen Mund- und Lebensart: Erzgebirgisch – Deutsch / Deutsch – Erzgebirgisch‎^[1] (in German), 3. geänderte Auflage edition, Norderstedt: BoD – Books on Demand, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 81

Inherited from Proto-Finnic *litna. Compare Finnish linna.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlinː/

linn (genitive linna, partitive linna)

1. city (large settlement)
2. (archaeology) fortified settlement

• “linn”, in [PSV] Eesti keele põhisõnavara sõnastik [Dictionary of Estonian Basic Vocabulary] (in Estonian) (online version, not updated), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2014
• “linn”, in [EKSS] Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Descriptive Dictionary of the Estonian Language] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2009
• “linn”, in [ÕS] Eesti õigekeelsussõnaraamat ÕS 2018 [Estonian Spelling Dictionary] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2018, →ISBN
• linn in Sõnaveeb (Eesti Keele Instituut)

From Old Irish lind (“pool, lake; sea, ocean”),^[1] from Proto-Celtic *lindos (“lake, liquid”).

• (Munster) IPA^(key): /lʲiːnʲ/^[2]
• (Galway) IPA^(key): /l̠ʲiːn̠ʲ/
• (Mayo, Ulster) IPA^(key): /l̠ʲin̠ʲ/^[3]

linn f (genitive singular linne, nominative plural linnte)

1. pool, pond; body of water, lake, sea

• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1927), “linn”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 2nd edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 662; reprinted with additions 1996, →ISBN
• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “linn”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

From Old Irish linn (“period, space of time”).^[4]

• (Munster) IPA^(key): /lʲiːnʲ/^[2]
• (Galway) IPA^(key): /l̠ʲiːn̠ʲ/
• (Mayo, Ulster) IPA^(key): /l̠ʲin̠ʲ/^[3]

linn f (genitive singular linne)

1. space of time, period

   cuntas na linne ― a contemporary account

• le linn (“during”)

• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1927), “linn”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 2nd edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 663; reprinted with additions 1996, →ISBN
• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “linn”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

From Old Irish linn.

• (Munster) IPA^(key): /lʲiːnʲ/ ~ /lʲinʲ/^[5]
• (Connacht) IPA^(key): /lʲin̠ʲ/^[6][7]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /l̠ʲɪn̠ʲ/ ~ /lʲɪn̠ʲ/^[8]

linn (emphatic linne)

1. first-person plural of le: with us, to us

• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1927), “linn”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 2nd edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 663; reprinted with additions 1996, →ISBN
• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “linn”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

Uncertain. Possibly from Old Norse *linnr, from Proto-Germanic *linþaz. Related to linnorm.

• IPA^(key): /lɪnː/

linn (masculine and feminine lin, neuter lint, definite singular and plural linne, comparative linnare, indefinite superlative linnast, definite superlative linnaste)

1. weak

• svak

• “linn” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /linn/, [lin]

linn

1. singular imperative of linnan

• IPA^(key): /ˈl̠ʲin̠ʲ/

linn

1. first-person plural of la

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:linn.

• Irish: linn
• Manx: lhien
• Scottish Gaelic: leinn

From Old Irish linn (“period, space of time”).

• IPA^(key): /ʎiːɲ/

linn m or f (genitive singular linn or linne, plural linntean)

1. era, age, period

   Linn Ùr ― New Age

   Linn an Umha ― Bronze Age

2. century

   san 20mh linn ― in the 20th century

3. generation (genealogy)

   bho linn gu linn ― from generation to generation

4. offspring, clutch

• (generation): ginealach, glùn

• Edward Dwelly (1911), “linn”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “3 linn”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language