Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Cairn Entry in Wiktionary


Picture of cairns along the Lion's Head trail on Mt. Washington, NH. Taken in late November during a snowstorm (from Wikipedia).
Etymology: from Scots cairn, from Scottish Gaelic carn (“‘heap of stones’”); compare Old Irish carn, Welsh carn, probably from a Proto-Celtic word meaning ‘horn’.

Noun: Singular cairn, Plural cairns
1.) A rounded or conical heap of stones erected by early inhabitants of the British Isles, apparently as a sepulchral monument.
Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn. -Campbell.
2.) A pile of stones heaped up as a landmark, to guide travelers on land or at sea, or to arrest attention, as in surveying, or in leaving traces of an exploring party, etc.
(zoology)
Synonyms
burial mound

Wikipedia has an article on: Cairn
It says: "A cairn (carn in Irish, carnedd in Welsh, càrn in Scots Gaelic) is a manmade pile of stones, often in a conical form. They are usually found in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops or near waterways."

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