- 1人工石堆（山上路標或山頂標記）
A cairn is a pile of stones that people built on purpose, not a heap the hill made by itself. It marks a place — especially the top of a mountain, or a path in wild country, or sometimes a grave. Walkers in Scotland and other high places stack cairns so the next person can find the way. You may add a stone when you pass, if that is the custom. It is a quiet outdoor word. and people writing about Scotland use it; you would not call the stones by your door a cairn just because they sit in a pile. Though actually, a cairn is not any old rocks. Someone chose them and set them there, as a sign. You say it like “kairn,” with the air sound in the middle.
組成From Scots cairn, from Scottish Gaelic càrn, from older Celtic, from a very old root that meant “horn.” A horn sticks up in a point; so does a stone pile on a ridge. Doublet of carn and of horn — same deep root, different roads into English.
同家族的字
- horndoublet: both from the same old root for a horn or a point that sticks up
- carndoublet: a rarer English form of the same Celtic stone-pile word
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
cairnnoun/kɛən/
- 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: / Why speak ye no word!"—said Glenara the stern.
- 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.
- After fifteen minutes of this we were glad to reach a high saddle on which former travellers had piled little cairns of commemoration and thankfulness.
- 3
A cairn terrier.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。