An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Barn

by Friedrich Kluge

Barn, masculine, ‘crib, hayrack above the crib,’ from the equivalent Middle High German barn, masculine, Old High German barno, masculine; Anglo-Saxon bern, English barn, is equivalent to German Scheuer. The German and English words are not, perhaps, identical, but only of a cognate stem; the stem of the English word is bar-, which appears in Gothic *baris, ‘barley,’ Anglo-Saxon bere, English barley, and is cognate with Latin far, farris, ‘spelt,’ Old Bulgarian bŭrŭ, ‘a species of millet’; Anglo-Saxon bern is explained from bere-ern, ‘barley-house.’