See also: -burgh

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English borwe, borgh, burgh, buruh, from Old English burh, from Proto-West Germanic *burg, from Proto-Germanic *burgz (city, stronghold).

Cognate with Dutch burg, French bourg, German Burg, Persian برج (borj, tower; battlement, fort), Swedish borg. Doublet of borough, Brough, and Bury.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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burgh (plural burghs)

  1. (Sussex) a small mound, often used in reference to tumuli (mostly restricted to place names).
  2. (UK) a borough or chartered town (now only used as an official subdivision in Scotland).
    • 1815, William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Book Eighth, The Parsonage, lines 95-104, [1]
      With fruitless pains / Might one like me 'now' visit many a tract / Which, in his youth, he trod, and trod again, / A lone pedestrian with a scanty freight, / Wished-for, or welcome, wheresoe'er he came— / Among the tenantry of thorpe and vill; / Or straggling burgh, of ancient charter proud, / And dignified by battlements and towers / Of some stern castle, mouldering on the brow / Of a green hill or bank of rugged stream.
    • 1953, C. S. Lewis, chapter 6, in The Silver Chair, Collins, published 1998:
      This road leads to the burgh and castle of Harfang, where dwell the gentle giants.

Derived terms

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