Also burrh. [app. imitative of the sound; though probably associated in idea with the roughness of a bur; cf. BUR sb., esp. sense 4, bur in the throat.]
1. A rough sounding of the letter r; spec. the rough uvular trill (= French r grasseyé) characteristic of the county of Northumberland, and found elsewhere as an individual peculiarity. (Writers ignorant of phonology often confuse the Northumberland burr with the entirely different Scotch r, which is a lingual trill: see quots. 1835, 1873.)
1760. Foote, Minor (1781), Introd. 9. An Aunt just come from the North, with the true NewCastle bur in her throat.
1805. R. Forsyth, Beauties Scotl., II. 57. From [the Tweed], southward as far as Yorkshire, universally all persons annex a guttural sound to the letter r; a practice which in some places receives the appellation of the Berwick burrh.
1835. W. Irving, Crayon Misc. (1849), 240. He spoke with a Scottish accent, and with somewhat of the Northumbrian ‘burr.’
1873. J. A. H. Murray, Dial. S. Scotl., 86. The northern limits of the burr are very sharply defined, there being no transitional sound between it and the Scotch r. Along the line of the Cheviots, the Scotch r has driven the burr a few miles back, perhaps because many of the farmers and shepherds are of Scotch origin.
1876. Green, Short Hist., i. § 3 (1882), 25. The rough Northumbrian burr.
b. Hence, loosely, A rough or dialectal pronunciation, a peculiarity of utterance.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, iv. 39. ‘A Yorkshire burr … was … much better than a cockney’s lisp.’ Ibid., III. ii. 41. Your accent … has no rugged burr.
1867. A. J. Ellis, E. E. Pronunc., I. i. 19. Each district has its burr or brogue.
1874. Farrar, Christ, II. lix. 348. Betrayed by his Galilæan burr.
2. [= BIRR 3.] Whirr, vibratory or rushing noise.
1818. Keats, Endym., II. 138. Holding his forehead, to keep off the burr Of smothering fancies.
1825. Coleridge, Lett., xl. in Lett. Convers., &c. II. 177. Put the whole working hive of my thoughts in a whirl and a bur.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax, i. 2. The open house-doors … through which came the drowsy burr of many a stocking-loom.
1860. All Y. Round, No. 57. 159. The burr of working wheels and cranks.
