Forms: 1 burʓ, buruʓ, 1–3 burh, 2 burch, bure(g)h, (burehg), beriȝ, 2–3 buruh, 3 burrh (Orm.), burwe, buri, 3–4 burȝ, buruȝ, borh, borȝ, boruȝ, boru, 4 burw, burȝe, borȝ(e, bourȝ, borou, borwȝ, borwgh, borw(e, borgh(e, 4–5 burghe, 4–6 (also Sc. 7–9) burgh, borogh, 4–7 borowe, 5 burwgh, borowgh, burwhe, borugh(e, burwe, bourg, 5–6 bourgh, 5–7 burrow(e, 6 borrowe, (bourg), burow, 6–7 boroughe, 6–8 burrough, (7 burrowghe, 8 borrough), 6– borough. Dat. sing. 1 byriʓ, burʓe, 2 birie, berie, 3 biri, burie, buri. [Common Teut.: OE. burʓ, burh = OFris. burch, OS. burg (MDu. burch, borch, Du. burg), OHG. burug (MHG. burc(g-), mod.G. burg), ON. (Sw., Da.) borg, Goth. baurgs:—OTeut. *burg-s str. fem. App. f. same root as OTeut. *berg-an str. vb. ‘to shelter’: see BERGH v.; but the phonology is not quite clear. In German and ON. the word is recorded chiefly in the primary sense of ‘fortress, castle,’ but there are traces of the sense of ‘town, civic community,’ which is found in Goth. and OE., and may therefore be assumed to have been developed in OTeut. Of the immense variety of spellings current in ME., burrough became the prevalent one in early mod. Eng., but was subsequently displaced by borough in England and Ireland, while the form established in Scotland was BURGH, q.v. The Danish BORG and Fr. BOURG have also been used by historical writers in special senses. See also BURROW, BERRY sb.3
Like other fem. consonantal stems, the OE. burʓ had vowel change (byriʓ) in gen. and dat. sing., and nom. acc. plural, which survived in dat. sing. to the 13th c. This dative, biri, berie, buri, was also at times used for the nominative; whence the modern Bury, -bury, in place-names.]
† 1. A fortress, castle or citadel. Obs. (Unequivocal instances of this sense are rare, even in OE. In quot. 1394 the word denotes simply a large building; and 1425 is quite doubtful.)
c. 820. Kentish Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 63. Ad arcem et ad mœnia, to burʓe and to wealle.
a. 1000. O. E. Chron., an. 920. Eadweard cyning … ʓetimbrede þa burʓ.
[1394. P. Pl. Crede, 118. We buldeþ a burwȝ a brod and a large.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. xiii. 125. Castellis, Bowrrowys and Fortalys.]
† b. A court, a manor-house. Hence prob. in place-names, e.g., Edgeware Bury, Hertingford Bury.
c. 1175. Cott. Hom., 231. And þider ʓeclepien alle his underþeod þat hi bi éne féce to his curt (berie) come sceolde.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 2257. He ledde hem alle to Iosepes biri.
[1576. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 377. Bury, or Biry … was used for a court, or place of assembly.]
† 2. A fortified town; a town possessing municipal organization (cf. OE. burhwaru body of citizens); more generally, any inhabited place larger than a village. (The three notions were originally co-extensive. When the word became restricted to the mod. sense (3) its wider sense passed to town.) Obs.
c. 893. K. Ælfred, Oros., II. viii. § 1. Hie binnan þære byriʓ up eodon … ond þa burʓ [10th c. MS. burh] mid ealle awestan.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. xxi. 17. Of þære byriʓ.
c. 1160. Hatton G., ibid. Of þare beriʓ.
c. 1175. Cott. Hom., 225. Hi woldan wercen ane burch · and enne stepel binnan þara birie.
c. 1205. Lay., 218. He makede ane heȝe burh.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 1053. Ȝet sat Loth at ðe burȝes gate.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., B. 1666. I haf bigged Babiloyne, burȝ alþerrychest.
1480. Caxton, Chron. Eng., V. (1520), 43 b/2. Cytees, and borughs, and townes that the Saxons hadde destroyed.
1483. Cath. Angl., 48, A Burghe burgus.
† b. fig. Cf. BURROW shelter, which Feltham may have confounded with borough.
1627. Feltham, Resolves, I. lii. Wks. (1677), 82. The mind is then shut up in the Burrough of the body.
3. A town possessing a municipal corporation and special privileges conferred by royal charter (hence the sovereign is said to create a borough). Also a town that sends representatives to parliament. (A municipal borough often differs in territorial extent from the parliamentary borough of the same name.) The word is commonly restricted to towns that do not possess the more dignified title of CITY. For the Scottish uses, see BURGH.
[(Early examples are necessarily not distinct in sense from the preceding.)
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 283. Be it castel, burgh, outher Cite.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIV. ii. (1495), 466. Aournyd wyth many grete cytees and borughes.]
1512. Act 4 Hen. VIII., xi. The Bourgh of Lymyngton with thappurtenaunces.
1574. trans. Littleton’s Tenures, 35 a. The aunciente townes called Boroughes bee the moste auncient and eldest Townes that bee within England.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1276/1. To this man King Henrie the third … did grant that his towne of Wigan should be a burrow.
1652. Proc. Parliament, No. 34. 2083. A list of the Burroughs that have since assented to the Union.
1718. Free-thinker, No. 66. 84. Your Counties, and your Burroughs … send you into Parliament.
1738. Hist. Crt. Excheq., ii. 20. Several of the Demesne Lands were given to Burroughs.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), III. xiii. 38. Edward VI. created fourteen boroughs, and restored ten that had disused their privilege.
1845. Stephen, Laws Eng., II. 357. A ‘borough’ is properly a town or city represented in parliament, although the term has occasionally (as in the Municipal Corporation Act) a wider signification.
b. The Borough: esp. that of Southwark. Cf. 5.
[1559. Mirr. Mag., Jack Cade, xxi. To Southwarke borow where it lay a night.]
1797. Ann. Reg., 28. A dreadful fire broke out yesterday morning in the High-Street in the Borough.
1886. Daily News, 18 Dec., 6/2. Fire in the Borough.
c. To own a borough, to buy a borough: to possess or to buy the power of controlling the election of a member of parliament for a borough. Close borough, pocket borough, a borough ‘owned’ by some person. Rotten borough: one of the boroughs which, before the passing of the English Reform Bill in 1832, were found to have so decayed as no longer to have a real constituency.
1771. Smollett, Humphr. Cl. (1815), 246. The practice of buying boroughs, and canvassing for votes.
1812. Sir F. Burdett, in Examiner, 12 Oct., 656/1. They will no more part with their rotten boroughs.
1817. G. Rose, Diaries (1860), I. 33. To suppress what were called the rotten boroughs.
1867. Morley, Burke, 104. Wilkes proposed to disfranchise the rotten boroughs.
† 4. At Richmond, Yorkshire, and perhaps other northern old corporate towns: A property held by BURGAGE, and formerly qualifying for a vote for members of parliament. Cf. BOROUGH-HOLDER.
1715. Lond. Gaz., No. 5296/4. A Very large Burrough, standing in … the Market-place of Richmond in Yorkshire, consisting of three Dwelling Houses, and two large shops.
† 5. In 14th to 16th c. sometimes used for the suburbs of a city, the portion lying outside the wall. Cf. contemporary use of F. bourg.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 1767. Til þay wer passed þe borwgh.
c. 1450. Merlin, xviii. (1877), 291. Kynge Arans hadde all day assailed the Castell of Arondell, but … nothinge thei wonne, saf only thei hadde brente the bourgh withoute.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. cxc. 225. The gate … bytwene the … borowe and the cytie. [At Oxford, the suburb of St. Clement’s, east of the Cherwell, is traditionally called ‘the Borough.’]
6. Archæological and historical uses.
a. Adopted to translate Gr. δῆμος and L. pagus in the sense of township or district.
a. 1747. Abp. Potter, in T. Mitchell, Aristoph. (1822), II. 160. The Athenians … delivered in their names, together with the names of their father and borough.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 81/2. Numa … divided the country into … portions, which he called pagi, or boroughs.
1850. Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos., III. Socrates was born in a little burgh of Attica.
b. Eng. Hist. in various arch. forms: used by some writers on the Old English period. See also BORG, BOURG, BURG, BURGH.
1872. E. Robertson, Hist. Ess., Introd. 11. The Burh, or burgh of early days.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. v. 92. The ‘burh’ of the Anglo-Saxon period was simply a more strictly organised form of the township. Ibid., 93, note. The five Danish burhs … had not only special privileges of their own, but a common organization.
7. Comb. and Attrib.
† a. Obs. law terms used Hist. by writers of 16th c. onwards; most recent writers retain the OE. spelling: burgh-bote [OE. burh-bót; cf. BOOT sb.1], a tax for the repair of fortresses; burgh-breche [OE. burh-bryce; cf. BREACH], close-breaking, burglary; burgh-mote, borough-moot [OE. burh-ʓemót; cf. MOOT], the judicial assembly of a borough.
1647. N. Bacon, Hist. Disc., xxxiii. 82. Power to charge one another with the maintenance of the Fortifications by an imposition called Burghbote.
1844. Lingard, Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858), I. vi. 221. Burgh-bot, or contribution towards the maintenance of the burghs or places of defence.
1387. Trevisa, Higden, Rolls Ser. II. 95. Burghbreche a Frensche blesmure de court ou de cloys.
1598. Tate, in Gutch, Coll. Cur., I. 4. Borrowbreach is interpreted Civitas rupta.
1641. Termes de la Ley, 44. Burbreach … trespasses done in Citie or Borough against the peace.
a. 1400. Vsages of Wynchestre, in Eng. Gilds, 350. At þe borghmot of seynt mychel.
1747. Carte, Hist. Eng., I. 311. A court or burghmote was held thrice a year for determining all causes between the inhabitants.
1872. E. Robertson, Hist. Ess., 130. The later county court of the Vicecomes or Sheriff … held three times a year as a Burh-gemote in the leading burgh of the district.
1880. Antiquary, June, 255. The ancient Burghmote horn of Ipswich.
† b. Other obs. compounds: borough-folk (OE. burh-folc), the people of a town; burgh-kenning, coined by Stow as an etymological rendering of BARBICAN (!); burh-were, pl. -weren [OE. burhwaru, -ware, -waran], the people or community of a town, the townsmen.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 89. Þat burh folc hihten þe heȝe strete.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 1853. Emor … And his burgefolc fellin in wi.
1598. Stow, Surv., xxxiii. (1603), 304. A Burgh-Kening or Watch Tower of the Cittie.
c. 1205. Lay., 28368. Iherden þa burh-weren [1275 borh-men] hu hit was al ifaren. Ibid., 28392. Hi bi-hehte bere burȝe-were auer mare freo laȝe.
c. Attrib. and Comb. in sense 3, as borough-accountant, -architect, -bailiff, -surveyor; borough-rate, a rate levied by the municipality of a borough. Also with reference to parliamentary representation, as borough-constituency, -election, faction, -influence, -patron, -politics, -slave, -traitor, -tyrant, -voter, etc.; borough-jobber, borough-jobbing = BOROUGH-MONGER, -MONGERING.
1812. Crabbe, Tales, Patron, 1. A *borough-bailiff, who to law was trained.
1866. Bright, Sp. Irel., 2 Nov. (1876), 193. Wherever the *borough constituencies are so small.
a. 1797. H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. II. (1847), II. xi. 373. He would be no *borough-jobber.
1803. Bristed, Pedest. Tour, II. 345. Exaltation by the usual gradations of *borough-jobbing, of courtierizing, and a peerage.
1811. Edin. Rev., XVII. 258. Having … prohibited the sale of seats by *borough-patrons.
1863. H. Cox, Instit., III. ix. 730. Householders … paying poor-rates and *borough-rates.
1813. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII. 81. Like a set of *borough-slaves, submitting to choose a second member at the dictation of Sir Francis Burdett.
