Forms: 4–5 terne, 5–6 tarne, 7 tearn, (8 Sc. tairn), 7– tarn. [ME. terne, a. ON. *tarnu, tjorn, tjörn; = Swed. dial. tjärn, tärn, Norw. tjörn, Da. tjern.]
A small mountain lake, having no significant tributaries. (Originally local northern English, now generally used by geologists and geographers.)
[1256. Assize Roll, 979 m. 10 d (Westmorland), Agnes … appellat … Edelinam filiam Ricardi de Blaterne [= Blea-tarn] quod ipsa dederat ei potum mortiferum bibere.]
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1041. Þer ar tres by þat terne of traytoures.
c. 1420. Avow. Arth., x. Gauan, with any more, To the tarne con he fore, To wake hit to day.
14[?]. (heading) The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne.
1587. Harrison. England, I. xv., in Holinshed, I. 95/1. The Air or Arre riseth out of a lake or tarne south of Darnbrooke.
1611. E. Bunny, Of the Head-corner-stone, ix. 216. The first Sea, Mere, Lough, or Tarn, that Iordan maketh, spreading it selfe into a great breadth there.
1674. Ray, N. C. Words, A Tarn, a Lake or Meer-pool, a usual word in the North.
1797. Coleridge, Christabel, I. Concl. 28. By tairn and rill, The night-birds all that hour were still.
1810. Wordsw., Scenery Lakes, i. (1823), 24. Tarns are found in some of the vales, and are numerous upon the mountains.
1813. Scott, Trierm., I. x. Though never sunbeam could discern The surface of that sable tarn, In whose black mirror you may spy The stars, while noon-tide lights the sky.
1839. Poe, Fall House of Usher, concl. And the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher.’
1880. Haughton, Phys. Geog., v. 235. The largest river in the world takes its most remote origin among the Andean Highlands, in a little inky tarn.
b. attrib. and Comb.
1819. Lockhart, Peter’s Lett., vi. I. 60. With the capacity of emitting such a flood of radiance, they [his eyes] seem to take a pleasure in banishing every ray from their black, inscrutable, glazed, tarn-like circles.
1873. M. Collins, Miranda, II. 83. Miranda, whose aureate hair and tarn-brown eyes had something unique about them.
1884. Swinburne, W. Collins, Misc. (1886), 59. A picture of upland fell and tarnside copse in the curving hollow of a moor.
1886. Burton, Arab. Nts. (abr. ed.), I. 72. The sorceress took in hand some of the tarn-water.
1903. Smart Set, IX. 133/2. Hers is one of those clear, tarnlike natures which one gauges quickly.
