hallan

See also: hállan

English

Etymology

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Noun

hallan (plural hallans)

1. (dialectal, Ireland, Scotland, Northumbria, Cumbria, Lancashire) The passage or space between the outer and inner door of a cottage; the partition between the passage and the room.
   • 1881, Chambers's Journal, volume 58, number 1, page 343:

     Nails had been driven into the boards in every spot where a nail could possibly be inserted, and on these were hung the various articles of this curious museum. Exactly opposite the door there had been originally cut in the hallan an opening […]

   • 1981, William Rollinson, Life & Tradition in the Lake District, page 22:I:

     Having successfully negotiated the threshwood, the visitor found himself in the hallan, which was about four feet wide. The hallan formed a convenient storage place for sacks of corn on the eve of market day and here, too, pigs were hung up […]

References

• James Orchard Halliwell (1846) “HALLAN”, in A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century. [...] In Two Volumes, volumes I (A–I), London: John Russell Smith, […], →OCLC, page 430, column 1.

Anagrams

• nallah

Finnish

Noun

hallan

1. genitive singular of halla

Spanish

Verb

hallan

1. third-person plural present indicative of hallar