A Barrow Is a Cart and Also a Burial Mound
Barrow names two unrelated things: a wheeled cart and an ancient grave mound. They come from different words that fell together.
A barrow is a small cart, and also a prehistoric burial mound. The two senses are unrelated: the cart comes from Old English *bearwe*, something carried, from the verb *beran*, to bear; the mound comes from *beorg*, a hill, related to German *Berg*. They arrived at the same spelling by coincidence.
- A hand cart. *A wheelbarrow.*
- A market stall on wheels. *A costermonger's barrow.*
- An ancient burial mound. *A Bronze Age barrow.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | barrow | A loaded barrow. |
| Plural | barrows | Two barrows. |
| Compound | wheelbarrow | A garden wheelbarrow. |
| Archaeology | long barrow | A neolithic long barrow. |
| Person | barrow boy | A London barrow boy. |
How it is used in a sentence
- He wheeled the barrow across the site.Cart.
- The long barrow dates to the neolithic.Archaeology.
- Barrow boys sold fruit from carts.London street trade.
Kinds of burial mound
- Long barrow — neolithic, often communal
- Round barrow — bronze age, usually for one person
- Bell barrow — with a gap between mound and ditch
- Tumulus — the general archaeological term
- Cairn — a mound of stones rather than earth
Two roots: Old English *bearwe*, a carrying device, from *beran*, to bear; and Old English *beorg*, a hill or mound, related to German *Berg*.
Are the two barrows related?
No. One means something carried, the other means a hill. They converged in spelling by accident.
Barrow or tumulus?
They mean the same thing. Tumulus is the Latin-derived term preferred on maps and in archaeology.