Synonyms for
Bourne
Definition
a small stream or a brook; a boundary or limit
Synonyms & similar words
Synonyms by register
Antonyms
Common collocations
- clear bourne
- flowing bourne
- mountain bourne
- chilling bourne
- babbling bourne
- swift bourne
Word family
noun bourne
Usage note
The word 'bourne' is primarily used in British English to refer to a small stream or brook. It is less common in modern American English, where 'stream' or 'creek' are more prevalent.
Example sentences
- The bourne ran through the meadow and provided water for the nearby animals.
- The bourne between the two properties was marked by a series of stones.
- The children loved to play in the shallow bourne and catch minnows.
- The bourne of their disagreement was a matter of principle rather than personal preference.
- The city limits are the bourne beyond which the suburbs begin.
Quotes
I am a part of all that I have met, / Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough / Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades / Forever and forever when I move. / How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! / As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life / Were all too little, and of one to me / Little remains: but every bourne of time / Is a starting-point whence we must sail / Into the dark, beyond the bourne, beyond the sunset, / Beyond the limits of the earth and air, / Beyond the reach of any man or God. - Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, / This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, / Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth, / Renowned for their deeds as far from home, / For Christian service and true chivalry, / As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry / Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son, / This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, / Dear for her reputation through the world, / Is now leas'd out, I die pronouncing it, / Like to a tenement or pelting farm: / England, bound in with the triumphant sea / Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege / Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame, / With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds: / That England, that was wont to conquer others, / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. / Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, / How happy then were my ensuing death! / The bourne betwixt these worlds / The happy realm of England. - William Shakespeare, Richard II