barn

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun an outlying farm building for storing grain or animal feed and housing farm animals
  2. noun (physics) a unit of nuclear cross section; the effective circular area that one particle presents to another as a target for an encounter

Etymology

From Middle English barn, bern, bærn, from Old English bearn, bern, contracted forms of Old English berern, bereærn (“barn, granary”), compound of bere (“barley”) and ærn, ræn (“dwelling, barn”), from Proto-West Germanic *raʀn, from Proto-Germanic *razną (compare Old Norse rann), from pre-Germanic *h₁rh̥₁-s-nó-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁erh₁- (“to rest”). More at rest and barley. For the use as a unit of surface area, see w:Barn (unit) § Etymology.

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