dial. Also nailbourne. [Of obscure origin; quot. 1480 would suggest that it is f. AIL sb. trouble, affliction + BOURN; but this may be popular etymology.] (See quots.)
c. 1480. Warkworth, Chron., 24 [mentions an intermittent stream near St. Albans, called Wemere (interpreted ‘woo watere’), the flowing of which was ‘a tokene of derthe, or of pestylence, or of grete batayle’; and adds:] Also there has ronne dyverse suche other wateres, that betokenethe lykewyse; one at Lavesham in Kent, and another byside Canturbury called Naylborne.
1677. Plot, Nat. Hist. Oxfordsh., 30. Of these [springs] there are many in the County of Kent, which I know not for what reason they call Nailbournes there.
1719. Harris, Hist. Kent, 174. Such … as in this County they call an Eylebourn; (or vulgarly a Nailbourn) which is a Spring that rises all of a sudden out of the Ground, runs a while like a Torrent and then disappears. Ibid., 240. There is a famous Eylebourn which rises in this Parish and sometimes runs but a little way … now and then it goes with a very strong Stream.
1727. Lewis, Faversham, 4. The brakish Creek, into which a spring or Nail-bourne from Ospringe falls.
1736. in Pegge, Kenticisms (E. D. S.), 38.
1887. Parish & Shaw, Kent. Dialect (E. D. S.), Eylebourne, Nailbourn, an intermittent spring.
