sharn

English

Alternative forms

• scarn, shairn, shearn, shern

Etymology

From Middle English scharn, from Old English sċearn (“sharn, dung, muck, filth”), from Proto-West Germanic *skarn, from Proto-Germanic *skarną (“manure”), from Proto-Indo-European *sker- (“dung, manure”). Cognate with North Frisian skern (“dung, manure”), Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic skarn (“dung”), German Harn (“urine”). Doublet of skarn.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)n

Noun

sharn (uncountable)

1. (chiefly Scotland) The dung or manure of cattle or sheep.
   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 19:

     right between the byre and the stable and the barn on one side and the house on the other was the cattle-court and right in the middle of that the midden, high and yellow with dung and straw and sharn, and Mistress Strachan could never forgive Peesie's Knapp because of that awful smell it had.

Derived terms

• sharnbod
• sharny

 

Anagrams

• Rahns, harns, shRNA, shrna