boreen Anglo-Irish.
(bɔːˈriːn)
Also bohreen, bohereen, bohir-.
[f. Irish bóthar (pronounced boːhər), a road + -een, diminutive suffix, a. Ir. -{iacu}n.]
A lane, a narrow road; also transf. an opening in a crowd. (Used only when Irish subjects are referred to.)
| 1841 S. C. Hall Ireland I. 77 At my brother's, a piece down that boreen. Ibid. 287 Wheresomever he went, the people made a bohreen for him. 1882 R. Downey Congreve's Doom in Tinsley's Mag., At length we reached a narrow boreen, down which we drove. 1899 Somerville & ‘Ross’ Irish R.M. 138, I thought you were a dead man when you faced him at the bohereen. 1920 Cornh. Mag. Oct. 494 A campaign among bogs and bohireens. 1921 Blackw. Mag. Jan. 11/1 The grass-grown bohereen leading over the crest of the hill. 1953 N. Fitzgerald Midsummer Malice xv. 189 The quarter of a mile of bohereen that connected the stables to the main road. |