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tavern

nouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈtævən//
  • United States//ˈtævəɹn//

A restaurant or bar.

noun

  1. 1

    A restaurant or bar.

  2. 2

    datedA building containing a bar licensed to sell alcoholic drinks, and offering sleeping accommodations for travelers.

    I maruell I heare no nevves of Dromio, either hee ſlackes the matter, or betrayes his maiſter, I dare not motion anie thing to Stellio, till I knovve vvhat my boy hath don; Ile hunt him out, if the loiterſacke be gone ſpringing into a tauerne, Ile fetch him reeling out.

    Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky / I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry, / "Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup / Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

    At half-past nine on this Saturday evening the parlor of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for the select circle—a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

    At one of the way-stations on his long journey a barmaid at a tavern speaks to Gilgamesh and tries to give him common sense on the human condition.

Etymology

From Middle English taverne, from Old French taverne (“wine shop”), from Latin taberna (“inn”). Doublet of taberna and taverna.

Forms

plural
taverns
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).