tarn

Etymology

From Middle English terne, tarne (“lake; pond, pool”), from Old Norse tjǫrn (“a small lake without tributaries”), from Proto-Germanic *ternō (“water hole”), perhaps related to *turnaz (“bitter, embittered”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to separate, split; to crack, shatter”). The word is cognate with Danish tjern, Faroese tjørn (“pond”), Icelandic tjörn (“pond”), Norwegian Bokmål tjern (“small forest or mountain lake”) (Norwegian Nynorsk tjern, tjørn), Swedish tjärn (“small forest lake”).

noun

1. (Northern England) A small mountain lake, especially in Northern England.
   Thou Wind, that ravest without, / Bare craig, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree, / Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, / Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, / Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, / Mad Lutanist! [footnote: Tairn is a small lake, generally if not always applied to the lakes up in the mountains, and which are the feeders of those in the valleys.[…]] 4 October 1802, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Dejection: An Ode”, in The Morning Post; republished in Henry Nelson Coleridge, editor, The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, volume I (Juvenile Poems; Sibylline Leaves), London: William Pickering, 1834, →OCLC, stanza VII, page 239
   Tarns are found in some of the vales, and are numerous upon the mountains. A Tarn, in a Vale, implies, for the most part, that the bed of the vale is not happily formed; that the water of the brooks can neither wholly escape, nor diffuse itself over a large area. Accordingly, in such situtions, Tarns are often surrounded by an unsightly tract of boggy ground; but this is not always the case, […] 1853, [William] Wordsworth, [Adam] Sedgwick, “Description of the Scenery of the Lakes”, in John Hudson, editor, A Complete Guide to the Lakes, Comprising Minute Directions for the Tourist; with Mr. Wordsworth’s Description of the Scenery of the Country, etc.: And Five Letters on the Geology of the Lake District, by the Rev. Professor Sedgwick, 4th edition, Kendal, Cumbria: Published by John Hudson; London: Longman and Co., and Whittaker and Co.; Liverpool: Webb, Castle-St.; Manchester: Simms and Co., →OCLC, section first (View of the Country as Formed by Nature), page 125
   In another story the remarkable mystery of the umbrella lost at the shores of a tarn and retrieved at the seaside is explained by the underground communication between the two. 1976, Linda Dégh, Andrew Vázsonyi, “Legend and Belief”, in Dan Ben-Amos, editor, Folklore Genres (Publications of the American Folklore Society, Bibliographical and Special Series; 26), Austin, Tex., London: University of Texas Press, part 2 (The Ethnography of Folklore Genres), page 114
2. (US, chiefly Montana) One of many small mountain lakes or ponds.
   It [the caribou] makes a fine, bold study on the foreground of an evening scene among the mountain tarns of Northern Idaho, as it fulfils the ideal description of the stag given by [Walter] Scott and other writers. 20 August 1874, Mortimer Kerry, “Zoology of the Northwest: The Cervidæ”, in Charles Hallock, editor, Forest and Stream: A Weekly Journal of Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural History, Fish Culture, Protection of Game, Preservation of Forests, and the Inculcation in Men and Women of a Healthy Interest in Out-door Recreation and Study, volume 3, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Published by Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 17 Chatham Street, published 1875, →OCLC, page 18, column 2
   Have you ever been swimming in glacial water – water turned milky blue or deep maroon by minerals and deposits seized by the glacier as it ponderously made its way across a continent? You would have been high atop a mountain, maybe in the Canadian Rockies or in Montana, where glaciers, now in retreat, still press down on the earth's crust. And it would have been in the summer – late August perhaps – the sun warm and still and bright, making you feel as if a dip in this remote glacial tarn is just what your tired body needs at this point in your day. 2002, Jennifer Sinor, “Time, Days, and Page”, in The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Ray’s Diary, Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, page 86
   Off to either side of the road Beartooth Highway], unforgettable mountain scenes arise beneath crisp mountain skies. Here is alpine country at its best, complete with lakes and tarns set amid truly rugged promontories. 2013, Gordon Sullivan, Cathie Sullivan, Photographing Montana: Where to Find Perfect Shots and How to Take Them, Woodstock, Vt.: The Countryman Press, page 39