Word.ws English Dictionary

burr

/bɜː//bɝ/

burr noun: a sharp, pointy object, such as a sliver or splinter. Also the alternative form of bur.

Noun (1)

burr (plural burrs)

  1. A sharp, pointy object, such as a sliver or splinter.
  2. A small piece of material left on an edge after a cutting operation.
    • You left a bunch of burrs on those parts yesterday. You've already been told not to miss the deburring operation.
    • But the graver, in ploughing furrows in the surface of the copper, raises corresponding ridges or burrs1852, Charles Tomlinson, “Engraving”, in Cyclopædia of Useful Arts & Manufactures, page 607
  3. A thin flat piece of metal, formed from a sheet by punching; a small washer put on the end of a rivet before it is swaged down.
  4. (historical) A broad iron ring on a tilting lance just below the grip, to prevent the hand from slipping.
  5. (historical) A metal ring at the top of the hand-rest on a spear.
    • And there kyng Arthur smote syr mordred vnder the shelde wyth a foyne of his spere thorughoute the body more than a fadom / And whan syr Mordred felte that he had hys dethes wounde / He thryst hym self wyth the myght that he had vp to the bur of kynge Arthurs spere / And right so he smote his fader...1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter IV, in Le Morte Darthur, book XXI
    • burr or ring of iron behind the hand1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry
  6. The ear lobe.
  7. A burr knot or burl.
    • We notice wild bees gathering sap in a burr of the third mango tree[.]2022, Carol Maxwell, Northern Territory Literary Awards, page 58
  8. The knot at the bottom of an antler.
  9. A revolving disk or cone with abrasive surfaces used to grind hard products in a grinder or mill.
    • burr grinder
    • The coffee guys insist that the single most important investment you can make if you brew coffee at home is a burr coffee grinder that crushes whole coffee beans by moving them through a grinding wheel. The burr chops the coffee into uniformly sized pieces, which enables the water to run through it...2011, Michaele Weissman, God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee, HMH, →ISBN

Verb (1)

burr (third-person singular simple present burrs, present participle burring, simple past and past participle burred)

  1. (transitive) To grind using a burr (revolving disk or cone with abrasive surfaces).

Noun (2)

burr (plural burrs)

  1. A rough humming sound.
  2. A uvular "r" sound, or (by extension) an accent characterized by this sound.
    • Foote’s mimicry was exquisitely ludicrous, but it was all caricature. He could take off only some strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle.1843 January, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Madame D'Arblay”, in Critical and Historical Essays, volume 2
    • “That man Glass has been with him again; I heard them talking through the door quite plain. Two separate voices: for James speaks low, with a burr, and the other voice was high and quavery.”1914, G. K. Chesterton, “The Absence of Mr Glass”, in The Wisdom of Father Brown

Verb (2)

burr (third-person singular simple present burrs, present participle burring, simple past and past participle burred)

  1. (transitive) To pronounce with a uvular "r".
  2. (intransitive) To make a rough humming sound.
    • The first thing Lucy noticed as she went in was a burring sound, and the first thing she saw was a kind-looking old she-beaver sitting in the corner with a thread in her mouth working busily at her sewing machine, and it was from it that the sound came.1950, C. S. Lewis, chapter 7, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Collins, published 1998

Noun (3)

burr (plural burrs)

  1. Synonym of brough (“halo around the sun or moon”)
    • Far burr, near rain; Near burr, far rain.1893, Lady Eveline Camilla Gurdon, County Folk-lore: Printed Extracts. Suffolk. No. 2, page 162
    • The larger the burr the nearer the rain.1888, William Douglas Parish, William Francis Shaw, A Dictionary of the Kentish Dialect and Provincialisms in Use in the County of Kent, page 23
    Synonyms:
    brough

Proper noun capitalized: Burr

Burr

  1. A surname.
    • One Nation, a new 501(c)4 linked to the Karl-Rove-backed American Crossroads super PAC, is spending more than $1.9 million on print, radio and digital ads highlighting the efforts of Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman...2015 May 12, Alexandra Jaffe, “First on CNN: New Rove-linked group spends $2M to boost GOP incumbents”, in CNN
    • The US Securities and Exchange Commission has closed its insider trading investigation into stock trades made by then-Sen. Richard Burr and his brother-in-law at the outset of the pandemic, the former senator announced Friday.2023 January 6, Manu Raju and Devan Cole, “SEC closes insider trading probe into former Republican senator”, in CNN
  2. An unincorporated community in Florida Township, Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota.
  3. An unincorporated community in Ripley County, Missouri.
  4. A village in Otoe County, Nebraska, named after burr oak trees.
  5. An unincorporated community in Wharton County, Texas.
  6. An unincorporated community in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.
  7. A community in Rural Municipality of Wolverine No. 340, central Saskatchewan, Canada.

Also used as

burr is also the alternative form of bur.

burr is also the alternative spelling of burl.

burr meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Telugu

burr in Hindi

बुर

burr in Marathi

बुर

burr in Bengali

বুর

burr in Telugu

బర్, బుర్, బూర్
More languagesFewer languages
burr in Malayalam
ബർർ
burr in Kannada
ಬರ್, ಬುರ್
burr in Punjabi
ਬੁਰ
burr in Gujarati
બુર
burr in Nepali
बुर, बुर्र

Examples of burr in a sentence

  • The front of it was defended by an iron-plate, called a vam-plat, that is, an avant-plate, and behind it was a broad iron ring, called a burr.1819, Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia:
  • And when his body was against the burr of the spear, he took his sword in both his hands and he swung the sword above his head, and he smote King Arthur with the edge of the sword upon the helmet.2012, Howard Pyle, The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur:
  • Many saddles, especially those for use on warhorses, had high burr plates and cantles. this was especially important when knights began using stirrups and the couched lance.2015, James B. Tschen-Emmons, Artifacts from Medieval Europe, page 280:
  • The burr chops the coffee into uniformly sized pieces, which enables the water to run through it and extract evenly.2011, Michaele Weissman, God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee, HMH, →ISBN:

All 16 example sentences with burr

Synonyms of burr

Forms of burr

Noun
pluralburrs
Verb
third-person singular presentburrs
present participleburring
past participleburred
pastburred

Plural of burr: burrs

Origin of burr

From Middle English burre, perhaps related to Old English byrst (“bristle”). Cognate with Danish burre, borre (“burdock, burr”), Swedish borre (“sea-urchin”).

Onomatopoeic, influenced by bur. Compare to French bruire.

Like brough, an alternative form of burgh (“mound, settlement”) employed in a special sense; thus a doublet of those terms, borough, Brough, burrow, and Bury.

Words formed from burr

Phrases with burr

Words that rhyme with burr

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about burr

What does burr mean?
Burr means a sharp, pointy object, such as a sliver or splinter.
What is burr in Hindi?
Burr in Hindi is बुर. See Burr meaning in Hindi.
How do you use burr in a sentence?
The front of it was defended by an iron-plate, called a vam-plat, that is, an avant-plate, and behind it was a broad iron ring, called a burr.
What part of speech is burr?
Burr can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce burr?
Burr is pronounced /bɝ/ (US).
What is the plural of burr?
The plural of burr is burrs.

Words near burr in the dictionary

  1. burquas
  2. Burque
  3. Burques
  4. Burqueño
  5. Burqueños
  6. burr
  7. burr cell
  8. burr cells
  9. burr cucumber
  10. burr cucumbers
  11. burr gherkin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burr (page history and authors); Burr (page history and authors); burr (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burr (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-bur.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bur.wav.

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