Home › Glossary › Letter B

bourne

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A poetic or archaic word for a boundary, destination, or limit, often suggesting the furthest point of life, travel, or understanding.

Detailed Definition
In older English, a bourne is a boundary, limit, or destination. Tennyson uses it in a solemn, elevated way to describe the limits of human life: “our bourne of Time and Place.”
Example
Example in poetry:
“From out our bourne of Time and Place” uses bourne as a limit or destination; Hamlet’s “undiscovered country” is often glossed as a bourne beyond return; the speaker reaches the bourne of childhood and cannot pass further; unlike bourn meaning a stream, bourne here marks a boundary
Additional Notes
The word “bourne” in the quoted line is an archaic term that most modern readers would not know without looking it up.; Found in the poem, Crossing the Bar by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Also Known As
stream brook creek rivulet
Skip to main content