mavourneen

M3A1V4O1U1R1N1E1E1N1
UK/məˈvʊəniːn/UK/məˈvɔːniːn/US/məˈvʊɹniːn/US/məˈvɝniːn/

noun

darling, sweetheart

OriginIrish mo mhuirnín →
Scrabble 15
Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounmavourneen (plural mavourneens)

plural mavourneens

  1. Irelanddarling, sweetheart

    1850 (approx.), Anonymous, Finnegan's Wake Biddy O'Brien began to cry "Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see? "Arrah, Tim, mavourneen, why did you die?" "Ah, shut your gob," said Paddy McGee!

    1 more example

    "Ay, Paddy, mavourneen; I'll be bail they didn't skit and laugh the way some people would be doin'." "Laugh! not thimsilves, indeed."

    1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 515

Origin

  1. Irishmo mhuirnín“my darling”
  2. Englishmavourneen

Hiberno-English, from Irish mo mhuirnín (“my darling”) (diminutive of muirn (“affection”)).

More words from Irish

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

mavourneen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mavourneen

MLA

“mavourneen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mavourneen. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mavourneen,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mavourneen.

Source: mavourneen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.