Word.ws English Dictionary

burrow

UK/ˈbʌɹəʊ//ˈbʌɹoʊ/

burrow noun: a tunnel or hole, or a system of tunnels, often as dug by a small creature for use as a home. Also the obsolete form of barrow.

burrow: a tunnel or hole, or a system of tunnels, often as dug by a small creature for use as a home
Image: Mænsard vokser, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

burrow (plural burrows)

  1. A tunnel or hole, or a system of tunnels, often as dug by a small creature for use as a home.
    • But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    earth, warren

Verb

burrow (third-person singular simple present burrows, present participle burrowing, simple past and past participle burrowed)

  1. (intransitive) To dig a tunnel or hole.
  2. (intransitive) To move underneath or press up against in search of safety or comfort.
    • The young girl burrowed into the bed.
  3. (intransitive) To investigate thoroughly.
    • The journalist burrowed into the origins of the mayor's corruption.

Proper noun capitalized: Burrow

Burrow (countable and uncountable, plural Burrows)

  1. A surname.
  2. A hamlet in Broadclyst parish, East Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SX9997).
  3. A settlement in Newton Poppleford and Harpford parish, East Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SY0789).
  4. A settlement in Kingsbury Episcopi parish, Somerset, which includes Higher Burrow and Lower Burrow (OS grid ref ST4120).
  5. A hamlet in Wootton Courtenay parish and Timberscombe parish, Somerset (OS grid ref SS9342).

Also used as

burrow is also the obsolete form of barrow.

burrow is also the obsolete form of borough.

burrow meaning in Hindi, Kannada, Gujarati and Odia

burrow in Hindi

a tunnel or hole
बिल bil

burrow in Kannada

ಬುರೋ

burrow in Gujarati

બુરો

burrow in Odia

ବୁରୋ
More languagesFewer languages
burrow in Nepali
बुरो
burrow in Tagalog
lungga
burrow in Arabic
جُحْر juḥr, سَرَب sarab, دَوْلَج dawlaj
burrow in Thai
รู ruu
burrow in Vietnamese
hang

Examples of burrow in a sentence

  • For example, an ichnofossil might be the preserved track an animal, or its burrow.
  • The aardvark burrows in the ground and feeds mostly on termites, which it catches with its long, slimy tongue.
  • Burrowing bivalves are infauna that filter-feed from within seafloor sediments.

All 40 example sentences with burrow

Synonyms of burrow

Forms of burrow

Noun
pluralburrows
Verb
third-person singular presentburrows
present participleburrowing
past participleburrowed
pastburrowed
Proper noun
pluralBurrows

Plural of burrow: burrows

Origin of burrow

From Middle English borowe, borewe, borwȝ, burȝe, burh, burye (“refuge for an animal, lair, burrow”), apparently a variant of Middle English burgh (“fortified dwelling, stronghold, refuge”) (see borough) and thus from Old English burh, from Proto-West Germanic *burg, from Proto-Germanic *burgz (“stronghold, city”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- (“high”), but this sense is not known in Old English burh. Compare, however, Dutch cognate burcht, which has a similar sense. It may be related to bury (“to dig”), in which case it would be derived from Proto-Indo-European *bʰergʰ- (“to protect, defend, save, preserve”).

English surname, from the noun borough. Also from the noun burrow and the two senses were often conflated. Compare Burrough, Burgh.

Words formed from burrow

Phrases with burrow

Words that rhyme with burrow

Questions about burrow

What does burrow mean?
Burrow means a tunnel or hole, or a system of tunnels, often as dug by a small creature for use as a home.
What is burrow in Hindi?
Burrow in Hindi is बिल (bil). See Burrow meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is burrow?
Burrow can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce burrow?
Burrow is pronounced /ˈbʌɹəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of burrow?
The plural of burrow is burrows.

Words near burrow in the dictionary

  1. Burrough
  2. Burrough on the Hill
  3. Burroughs
  4. Burroughsian
  5. Burrovian
  6. burrow
  7. burrow duck
  8. burrow ducks
  9. burrow owl
  10. Burrow-with-Burrow
  11. burrowable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burrow (page history and authors); Burrow (page history and authors); burrow (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burrow (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burrow (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); burrow (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: en-us-ne-burrow.ogg.

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