Word.ws English Dictionary

burgher

/ˈbɜː(ɹ)ɡə(ɹ)/

burgher noun: a citizen of a borough or town, especially one belonging to the middle class.

Noun (1)

burgher (plural burghers)

  1. A citizen of a borough or town, especially one belonging to the middle class.
    • When General Grant started on his tour around the world, the City of Brotherly Love was selected as the point of departure, and thence he set sail for Europe with the benisons of the sturdy burghers of the Quaker City.1879 December 21, “[Ulysses S.] Grant in Philadelphia”, in Norfolk Virginian, volume XXIX, number 24, Norfolk, Va., →OCLC, page 2, column 1
    1. A member of the medieval mercantile class.
    2. A citizen of a medieval city.
  2. A prosperous member of the community; a middle-class citizen (may connote complacency).

Noun (2) capitalized: Burgher

Burgher (plural Burghers)

  1. A member of a mixed-race ethnic group of Sri Lanka, consisting of descendants of European colonists and local people.

Forms of burgher

pluralburghers
alternative formburger
pluralBurghers
alternative formBurger

Origin of burgher

From Middle English burger, burgher, burghere, equivalent to burgh + -er (“inhabitant of”). Likely merged with and reinforced by Middle Dutch burgher (Modern Dutch: burger); from Middle High German burger (Modern German: Bürger); from Old High German burgāri (“inhabitant of a fortress”); derivative of burg (“fortress, citadel”), from Proto-West Germanic *burg, from Proto-Germanic *burgz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- (“fortified elevation”). Compare also Old English burgwaras (“inhabitants of a burg, burghers, citizens”) and Serbo-Croatian purger. More at borough.

From burgher (“middle-class person”) and the synonymous Dutch burger. The European colonists who mixed with natives were of that social stratum.

Words formed from burgher

Words that rhyme with burgher

Questions about burgher

What does burgher mean?
Burgher means a citizen of a borough or town, especially one belonging to the middle class.
What part of speech is burgher?
Burgher is a noun.
How do you pronounce burgher?
Burgher is pronounced /ˈbɜː(ɹ)ɡə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of burgher?
The plural of burgher is burghers.

Words near burgher in the dictionary

  1. Burghardts
  2. Burghausen
  3. burghbote
  4. Burghclere
  5. Burghead
  6. burgher
  7. burgherdom
  8. burgheress
  9. burgheresses
  10. burgherhood
  11. burgherly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burgher (page history and authors); Burgher (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-burgher.wav.

Cite this entry: “burgher.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/burgher. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.