Kyarn, also spelled cyarn, is an Appalachian and Ozark dialect form of carrion, dead or rotting flesh. Jennifer, calling from the public library in Chowan County, North Carolina, heard it from her father, who grew up in eastern Kentucky, in phrases such as isn’t worth a kyarn and stinks like kyarn. The word can also stretch beyond literal rot to mean something generally nasty, messy, or repulsive, as when a disorderly house is said to look like kyarn. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Kyarn” or “Cyarn” Can Describe Anything Repulsive, Even a Disorderly House”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Thank you. Hi, this is Jennifer. I’m calling from Chowan County Library in North Carolina.
Well, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?
Well, my father had an interesting expression when I was growing up, and an unusual word that I never knew the meaning of. And I was wondering if you could help me out.
We will try.
He grew up in eastern Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains up in the holler, and he had some unusual words. One of the most, which really stuck out to me, was the word karn. He would say something isn’t worth a karn or it stinks like karn, and that was just in his everyday, you know, vocabulary. And I never knew what the word was other than there was a lot of Irish and Scottish people in the area, you know, ancestry in the area, and I assumed maybe it had come from something like that, but I never knew what it meant, so I was hoping that you might know.
And Jennifer, do you have any sense of how he would have spelled it? Had he written it?
I just have thought, I’ve been thinking about it, maybe like K, like phonetically K-Y-A-R-N.
Yeah, that’s a term that you do hear in the Appalachians and in the Ozarks. And it’s a term that doesn’t have quite as fancy an origin as what you’re suspecting. You really zeroed in on it when you talked about something that stinks like kiarn.
Okay.
Because kiarn is actually an adaptation of the word carrion.
Carrion.
Okay.
C-A-R-R-I-O-N.
Right.
Carrion.
C-A-R-R-I-O-N.
So dead animals, rotting dead animals.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Something that the crows would come and pick on.
Yeah.
Oh, my.
Oh, my.
So if something stinks like carrion, it’s the worst.
Yeah.
Then it really is a stinky thing. The word has been expanded to mean just like your house looks like kiarn or something. It doesn’t have to be something that’s really gross. It could be your house is really disorderly or something. Somebody might describe it as that.
Oh, that’s interesting.
Okay.
But, yeah, I’ve seen different spellings of it exactly the way that you were talking about, K-Y-A-R-N, C-Y-A-R-N. But it’s sort of pronounced with this kind of kern.
Kern.
Kern.
So, Jennifer, thank you so much for calling.
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it so much to learn this.
Us again sometime with the rest of your father’s words, all right? Have a great day. Bye-bye.
You too. Bye-bye. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org. Talk to us on Twitter at W-A-Y-W-O-R-D. And look for us on Facebook. Just search for A Way with Words and join the Facebook group.
