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a child; son or daughter.
Historical Examples

Nay, verily, I was a child before; all by-gones are but bairn’s play.
Letters of Samuel Rutherford Samuel Rutherford

Hath he no the smooth face o’ a bairn and the thews’ o’ Behemoth?’
Micah Clarke Arthur Conan Doyle

“We’ve welded America already into the clan, dear bairn,” smiled Mrs. Cameron.
The Jolliest School of All Angela Brazil

Too awful it is for an aged man to bide and bear, that his bairn so young rides on the gallows.
Beowulf Anonymous

But, May, my bairn, the guid man’s sleeping wi’ downright fatigue.
Wilson’s Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XX Alexander Leighton

But, at any rate, she was his wife, and the bairn would be his bairn.
Is He Popenjoy? Anthony Trollope

Eh, but sic maun be sair affrontit wi’ themsels, that disgrace at ance the wife that should hae been and the bairn that shouldna!
Salted With Fire George MacDonald

You forget I was but a bairn when we romped in the hay-dash.
John Splendid Neil Munro

Yes; this bairn Anne, Mrs. Ross, as you see, has been misbehaving herself.
Merkland Mrs. Oliphant

I speired at ‘im what he meant by terrifyin’ a bairn, but he didna say naething.
A Window in Thrums J. M. Barrie

noun
(Scot & Northern English) a child
n.

“child” (of any age), Old English bearn “child, son, descendant,” probably related to beran (“to bear, carry, give birth;” see bear (v.)). Originally not chiefly Scottish, but felt as such from c.1700. This was the English form of the original Germanic word for “child” (see child). Dutch, Old High German kind, German Kind are from a prehistoric *gen-to-m “born,” from the same root as Latin gignere. Middle English had bairn-team “brood of children.”