A bourne is an intermittent

stream A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams ...

, flowing from a spring. Frequent in chalk and limestone country where the rock becomes saturated with winter rain, that slowly drains away until the rock becomes dry, when the stream ceases. The word is from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

language of England. The word can be found in northern England in placenames such as: Redbourne and Legbourne but is commonly in used in southern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

(particularly

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

) as a name for a small river, particularly in compound names such as winterbourne. A winterbourne is a stream or river that is dry through the summer months. Bourne is used as a place name or as a part of a place name, usually in

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

downland Downland, chalkland, chalk downs or just downs are areas of open chalk hills, such as the North Downs. This term is used to describe the characteristic landscape in southern England where chalk is exposed at the surface. The name "downs" is deriv ...

countryside. Alternative forms are bourn or borne or born. The apparent variant, borne found in the placename:

Camborne Camborne ( kw, Kammbronn) is a town in Cornwall, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 20,845. The northern edge of the parish includes a section of the South West Coast Path, Hell's Mouth and Deadman's Cove. Camborne was former ...

, arises from the

Cornish language Cornish (Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a revived language, having become extinct as a living community language in Cornwall at the end of the 18th century. However, ...

and is in fact a

false friend In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ''embarazada'' 'pregnant'; English ''parents'' ...

: it refers to a hill (Cornish: ''bronn'', from

Common Brythonic Common Brittonic ( cy, Brythoneg; kw, Brythonek; br, Predeneg), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany. It is a form of Insular Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, ...

''*brunda''; compare

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

''bryn''). Born/borne in German also means fount, or spring, and is related to the Indo-European root, *bhreu. That born/borne appears throughout Europe as a placename is also an important clue that this spelling is an etymological precursor to the Middle English bourne/burn. Cf. Burn (landform), in common use in Scotland and North East England especially, but also found (in placenames) elsewhere in England such as:

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

, Gisburn, Woburn, Kilburn, Winkburn, and so forth. For rivers and places named Bourne or having this word as part of the name, see

Bourne (disambiguation) Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourn ...

References

{{rivers, streams and springs Water streams Fluvial landforms Geomorphology Hydrology Rivers Bodies of water