linn

plural linns · alternative lin · alternative lyn · alternative lynn

1. Northern EnglandScotlandWalesA waterfall or cataract (torrent of water running over a rocky bed), or a ravine down which such a waterfall rushes.

   And the roaring of the linn.

   1866, John Harland, Lancashire Lyrics: Modern Songs & Ballads of the County Balatine, section 85

   3 more examples

   What seek we here / Amid this waste where desolation scowls, / And the red torrent, brawling down the linn, / Sings everlasting discord?

   1814, J. H. Craig [pseudonym; James Hogg], The Hunting of Badlewe: A Dramatic Tale, London: H[enry] Colburn; Edinburgh: G. Goldie, →OCLC, page 1; quoted in “The Hunting of Badlewe, a Dramatic Tale. 8vo. Edin. 1814. [From the Scottish Review.]”, in The Analectic Magazine, Containing Selections from Foreign Reviews and Magazines, together with Original Miscellaneous Compositions, volume V (New Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: Published and sold by Moses Thomas, […], May 1815, →OCLC, pages 353–354

   "For it's o'er the bank, and it's o'er the linn, "And it's up to the meadow ridge—" "Ay," quo' the Stumpie hirpling in,

   1844 December, “The Legend of Stumpie's Brae”, in The Dublin University Magazine, page 720

   Hear! now, Yon linn's melodious thunder!

   1896, Lewis Proudlock, The Borderland Muse, page 51

plural linns · alternative lin

1. Northern EnglandScotlandWalesA pool of water, especially one formed and agitated by the water from a cascade.

   The running of deep water in a linn.

   1896, Crockett, Grey Man, vii

   5 more examples

   There frisks the freckl'd finny tribe, In linns both wide and steep.

   1812, “Poems”, in Forbes, section 49

   In the clear linn the trouts shuttled from stone and crevice.

   1823, Galt, Gilhaize, section XXVIII

   The pool is there — the true linn, in the original acceptance of the word — dark and bottomless.

   1868 September 24, James Hardy, addressed delivered at Chirnside, quoted in the History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, volume 5, page 386

   A trellised path led down into the valley of the brook, and he turned to follow it. The stream was a breakneck, boiling Highland river. Hard by the farm, it leaped a little precipice in a thick grey-mare's tail of twisted filaments, and then lay and worked and bubbled in a linn. Into the middle of this quaking pool a rock protruded, shelving to a cape; and thither Otto scrambled and sat down to ponder.

   1885, Robert Louis Stevenson, Prince Otto

   His successful angler landing the linn-lier [fish that inhabits a pool of water].

   1894, Furth, Haliburton, section 177

1. A surname.
2. A city and town in Kansas, United States.
3. A small city, the county seat of Osage County, Missouri, United States.
4. A town in Wisconsin, United States.