Etymology

Farne Islands

Today it means: An archipelago off the coast of Northumberland, England, included in North Sunderland parish (OS grid ref NU23). Full definition →

Old English farena ← Old Irish fearann
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Old Irish · derived fromfearann“territory”
  2. Old English · derived fromfarena
  3. English todayFarne Islands

Uncertain, but see Lindisfarne. Recorded by Bede (c. 750) as Farne. Possibly from Old English farena, genitive plural of fara (“traveller”). Allen Mawer (1920) and Richard Coates (2000) proposed derivation from Old Irish fearann (“territory”).

Words from the same roots

Old Englishfarena all →

Lindisfarne

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.