burr

• (US) IPA^(key): /bɝ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Homophones: Burr, brr
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)

From Middle English burre, perhaps related to Old English byrst (“bristle”). Cognate with Danish burre, borre (“burdock, burr”), Swedish borre (“sea-urchin”).

burr (plural burrs)

1. A sharp, pointy object, such as a sliver or splinter.
2. A bur; a seed pod with sharp features that stick in fur or clothing.

   Synonym: sticker

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 78:

     […] nay Friar, I am a kind of Burre, I ſhal ſticke.

   • 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section X:

     But cockle, spurge, according to their law / Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, / You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.

3. A small piece of material left on an edge after a cutting operation.
   • 1852, Charles Tomlinson, “Engraving”, in Cyclopædia of Useful Arts & Manufactures‎, page 607:

     But the graver, in ploughing furrows in the surface of the copper, raises corresponding ridges or burrs

4. A thin flat piece of metal, formed from a sheet by punching; a small washer put on the end of a rivet before it is swaged down.
5. A broad iron ring on a tilting lance just below the grip, to prevent the hand from slipping.
6. The ear lobe.
7. A burr knot or burl.
   • 2022, Carol Maxwell, Northern Territory Literary Awards, page 58:

     We notice wild bees gathering sap in a burr of the third mango tree[.]

8. The knot at the bottom of an antler.
9. (engineering) A revolving disk or cone with abrasive surfaces used to grind hard products in a grinder or mill.

   Synonyms: millstone, grindstone

burr (third-person singular simple present burrs, present participle burring, simple past and past participle burred)

1. (transitive, engineering) To grind using a burr (revolving disk or cone with abrasive surfaces).

Onomatopoeic, influenced by bur. Compare to French bruire

burr (plural burrs)

1. A rough humming sound.
2. A uvular "r" sound, or (by extension) an accent characterized by this sound.
   • 1843 January, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Madame D'Arblay”, in Critical and Historical Essays‎, volume 2:

     Foote’s mimicry was exquisitely ludicrous, but it was all caricature. He could take off only some strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle.

   • 1914, G. K. Chesterton, “The Absence of Mr Glass”, in The Wisdom of Father Brown‎:

     “That man Glass has been with him again; I heard them talking through the door quite plain. Two separate voices: for James speaks low, with a burr, and the other voice was high and quavery.”

   • 1920, Melville Davisson Post, “The House by the Loch”, in The Sleuth of St. James's Square‎:

     He spoke with the deep rich burr of his race and with a structure of speech that I cannot reproduce here.

   • 2004 January 9, Kirsty Scott, “Why ye cannae learn English in Scotland”, in The Guardian‎:

     The Scottish burr may often prove incomprehensible to English ears, but the Foreign Office apparently considers the accent so impenetrable that it has rejected a Russian student's application to study in Scotland on the grounds that she might not understand the language.

   • 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 65:

     Judging by the new voice over the PA, we've had a crew change in Plymouth - the warning about masks and the apology for lack of catering is made in a chirpy Cockney twang rather than a West Country burr.

burr (third-person singular simple present burrs, present participle burring, simple past and past participle burred)

1. (transitive) To pronounce with a uvular "r".
2. (intransitive) To make a rough humming sound.
   • 1950, C. S. Lewis, chapter 7, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Collins, published 1998:

     The first thing Lucy noticed as she went in was a burring sound, and the first thing she saw was a kind-looking old she-beaver sitting in the corner with a thread in her mouth working busily at her sewing machine, and it was from it that the sound came.

Uncertain.

burr (plural burrs)

1. (historical) A metal ring at the top of the hand-rest on a spear.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter IV, in Le Morte Darthur, book XXI:

     And there kyng Arthur smote syr mordred vnder the shelde wyth a foyne of his spere thorughoute the body more than a fadom / And whan syr Mordred felte that he had hys dethes wounde / He thryst hym self wyth the myght that he had vp to the bur of kynge Arthurs spere / And right so he smote his fader Arthur wyth his swerde holden in bothe his handes

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry:

     burr or ring of iron behind the hand

   • 1819, Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia:

     The front of it was defended by an iron-plate, called a vam-plat, that is, an avant-plate, and behind it was a broad iron ring, called a burr.

   • 2003, Thomas Howard Crofts, Fifteenth-century Malory, page 290:

     We are made to witness a cathartic shuffling-off of mortalities and of hatreds: Mordred's pulling himself up to the 'burr' of Arthur's spear is Malory's own detail and one of the most memorable in the book.

   • 2012, Howard Pyle, The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur:

     And when his body was against the burr of the spear, he took his sword in both his hands and he swung the sword above his head, and he smote King Arthur with the edge of the sword upon the helmet.

   • 2015, James B. Tschen-Emmons, Artifacts from Medieval Europe, page 280:

     Many saddles, especially those for use on warhorses, had high burr plates and cantles. this was especially important when knights began using stirrups and the couched lance.

From burl.

burr (plural burrs)

1. (British) Alternative spelling of burl

• “burr”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “burr”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “burr”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “burr”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.

burr

1. Gheg form of burrë

• Jungg, G. (1895) “burr”, in Fialuur i voghel sccȣp e ltinisct [Small Albanian–Italian dictionary], page 13

From Proto-Germanic *buriz (“male offspring; son”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, carry, bring”). Cognate with Old English byre, Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍂 (baur).

burr m

1. son
   1. (when preceded by genitive of jǫrð) kenning for Thor.
      • verse 1 of the Þrýmskviða, (1936 translation by Henry Adams Bellows)

        Skegg nam at hrista / skǫr nam at dýja, / réð Jarðar burr / um at þreifask.

        He [Thor] shook his beard / his hair was bristling / as the son of Jorth / about him sought.

   Synonym: sonr

2. poet

• Icelandic: bur

• “burr”, in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Borrowed from Spanish burro.

burr (possessed xpurr)

1. donkey
2. donkey-load

• Butler H., Inez M. (2000) Diccionario zapoteco de Yatzachi: Yatzachi el Bajo, Yatzachi el Alto, Oaxaca (Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves”; 37)‎, second electronic edition, Coyoacán, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., page 31