bourn
1 Americannoun
noun
-
a bound; limit.
-
destination; goal.
-
realm; domain.
noun
-
a destination; goal
-
a boundary
noun
Other Word Forms
- bournless adjective
Etymology
Origin of bourn
1515–25; earlier borne < Middle French, Old French, originally a Picard form of bodne; bound 3
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As Winterson described it in a recent interview, this is “Shakespeare’s undiscovered country, ‘from whose bourn no traveler has returned.’”
From Los Angeles Times
Paul Reubens has left the Earth, riding a sporty red-and-white bicycle into that Puppetland from whose bourn no traveler returns, but leaving us with his great creation and alter ego: Pee-wee Herman.
From Los Angeles Times
But is its destination — what Hamlet called “the undiscovered country from whose bourn/No traveler returns” — merely an abrupt conclusion?
From New York Times
What Hamlet called “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns” has wide-open borders in Brockmeier’s morose but clever tales.
From Washington Post
In other words, was Hamlet right to call death an inescapable boundary, “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns?”
From New York Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
