Dictionary

barnie en · NOUN

Etymology

From barn + -ie.

Meanings

1. (colloquial) A barn owl or barn swallow.
   • As they do they're encountering barn swallows, and the meeker barnies are suffering. 1998, Charles Robert Brown, Swallow Summer, →ISBN, page 230:
   • Bonnot found that the "area covered by the bed was three inches deep with feathers, wings, and bodies" of the hapless birds. The barnies had so little difficulty catching them that in many instances they simply bit off the heads 1990, Owls: their life and behavior : a photographic study of the North:
   • BARNIES. Some 80 years ago the 'Transactions of the Norfolk Naturalists' Society' carried an extraordinary account of what was almost certainly a pair of luminous barn owls 2010, Richard Mabey, A Brush With Nature: 25 years of personal reflections on nature:
2. (colloquial) A barn occupant.
   • The 'Barnies' as they were more commonly known, were, in the main, deserving pensioners 1974, Conor Brady, Guardians of the peace - Page 5:
   • Peridot "You should just move in with us at this point." Steven "Actually, maybe not me. But I know someone else who might be interested." Navy "Hi! I'm Navy, a refugee from Homeworld. Just like you guys. Peridot "So uh, when did you show up on Earth?" Navy "Today." Peridot "New barnie!" 2017, “Room for Ruby”, in Steven Universe:
   • During recess an inviolable border separated the townies at the northern end of our play area from the barnies at the southern. 2016, Peter Straub, Interior Darkness: Selected Stories:
   • 'What are the Barnies?' asked George, puzzled at Mrs Penruthlan's evident pleasure and excitement. 'Oh, they're travelling players that wander round the countryside and play and act in our big barns,' said Mrs Penruthlan 2014, Enid Blyton, Famous Five: 12: Five Go Down To The Sea:
   • former Barnies, like me, knew very well that serious students — if they would work their butts off — could probably learn more of what the commercial theatre was really about in a summer at the Barn than they could in all four years 2002, Man in the Spangled Pants: Jack Ragotzy and the First Fifty Years:

Forms

Relateds

bairnie · townie