as in pile
a small quantity of stones heaped together that usually marks a place
A cairn of loose stones marked the site.
Related Words
Relevance
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of cairn
Stone cairns, serpentine walls, earthen mounds, balance rocks, ancient spring wells, and interesting stone enclosures have been identified as potential early cultural evidence of pre-European native use.
—
Staff Report, Hartford Courant, 3 May 2025
The way forward is often indiscernible, with trail markers like signs, cairns, and ribbons, few and far between.
—Olivia James, Outside Online, 24 Apr. 2025
Most remarkable is the cairn-tomb of Gavrinis, one of Europe's great repositories of megalithic art, its interior replete with swirling patterns carved into the rock some 6,000 years ago.
—The Week Uk, theweek, 12 Oct. 2024
The bones excavated at the site were returned to King William Island in 1994 and interred in a memorial cairn.
—Katie Hunt, CNN, 11 Oct. 2024
See All Example Sentences for cairn
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cairn
Noun
-
During the day, the birds lie motionless on the ground, blending into piles of leaves and tree stumps to hide from predators.—
-
Each pepper is topped with a heaping pile of fontina cheese.—
Noun
-
Rescuers retrieved eight people alive and were searching for the missing still trapped after a huge mound of garbage and debris collapsed on them in the village of Binaliw in Cebu city, police said.—
-
An igloo-like tarpaulin now covers the mound of flowers, teddy bears and lit candles outside Le Constellation bar in the ski resort, to protect the makeshift memorial from the falling snow.—
Noun
-
During a recent clean-out, I was shocked by the various levels of color saturation in my stack of black jeans.—
-
Atlas toward pushing control boundaries and Optimus toward integration with production-line economics and perception stacks adapted from autonomous driving.—
Noun
-
But Smith’s international bona fides aren’t limited to the mountain.—
-
Strongest winds will occur on the eastern slopes of the San Bernardino mountains.—
Cite this Entry
“Cairn.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cairn. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
Love words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share