Word.ws English Dictionary

burly

UK/ˈbɜːli/US/bɝli/

burly adjective: large, well-built, and muscular.

Adjective (1)

burly (comparative burlier, superlative burliest)

  1. (usually) Large, well-built, and muscular.
    • He’s a big, burly rugby player who works as a landscape gardener.
    • With no great disparity between them in point of years, they were, in every other respect, as unlike and far removed from each other as two men could well be. The one was soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and elegant; the other, a burly square-built man, negligently dressed, rough and abrupt...1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge. Chapter 12.”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 301
  2. (UK, slang, East End of London) Great, amazing, unbelievable.
    • That goal was burly.
    • Kimi Räikkönen is a burly Formula 1 driver.
  3. (US, slang, surf culture and/or Southern California) Of large magnitude, either good or bad, and sometimes both.
    • That wave was burly! (i.e. large, dangerous and difficult to ride)
    • This hike is going to be burly, but worth it because there is good body surfing at that beach.

Adjective (2)

burly (comparative more burly, superlative most burly)

  1. Full of burls or knots; knotty.

burly meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

burly in Tamil

கட்டுறுதியான

burly in Urdu

burly
ابھرا ہوا ubhrā havā

burly in Malayalam

കരുത്തുളള

burly in Kannada

ಬಲಶಾಲಿಯಾದ, ಗಟ್ಟಿಮುಟ್ಟಾದ, ದೃಢಕಾಯನಾದ, ಗಟ್ಟಿಮುಟ್ಟು

Examples of burly in a sentence

  • His rough, burly father was mortified by the lad's pantywaist behavior.
  • He was awakened by a couple of burly police officers and huckled out to a waiting van.
  • I walk briskly away from the howling child and the burly cop and the snickering shoppie.

All 23 example sentences with burly

Forms of burly

comparativeburlier
superlativeburliest
alternative formbowerly
comparativemore burly
superlativemost burly

Origin of burly

From Middle English burly, burely, borly, burlich, borlich, borlic (“tall, stately”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Scots burely, burly (“rough, stout, sturdy, strong”). Perhaps from Old English *būrlīċ (“noble, stately”, literally “bowerly”), equivalent to bower + -ly; or from Old English *byrlīċ (“high, raised”), from byre (“raised area, mound”), cognate with Old High German burlīh, purlīh (“lofty, elevated, high, exalted”), related to Old High German burjan (“to raise, lift, push up”), English burgeon. However, Irish burla (“bundle, pack; burly person”) points to a different origin.

From burl + -y.

Words formed from burly

Words that rhyme with burly

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about burly

What does burly mean?
Burly means large, well-built, and muscular.
What is burly in Tamil?
Burly in Tamil is கட்டுறுதியான. See Burly meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is burly?
Burly is an adjective.
How do you pronounce burly?
Burly is pronounced /ˈbɜːli/ (UK).

Words near burly in the dictionary

  1. Burlison
  2. Burlisons
  3. burls
  4. Burlton
  5. burlwood
  6. burly
  7. burlywood
  8. Burma
  9. Burma Road
  10. Burma Roads
  11. Burmah

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burly (page history and authors); burly (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ابھرا ہوا (Urdu) (page history and authors); burly (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); burly (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-burly.ogg.

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