bury
/ˈbɛɹi/ verb, noun, proper noun
Forms buries burying buried Burys
- verb (figurative, slang) To kill or murder.
- verb (figurative, humorous) To outlive. “Grandpa’s still in excellent health. He’ll bury us all!”
- verb To place in the ground. “bury a bone; bury the embers”
- verb (often figurative) To hide or conceal as if by covering with earth or another substance. “She buried her face in the pillow, and I buried mine in my hands.”
- verb To render imperceptible by other, more prominent stimuli; to drown out. “vocals buried in the mix”
- verb (by extension) To overwhelm. “They buried us in paperwork.”
- verb (figuratively) To suppress and hide away in one's mind. “secrets kept buried”
- verb (figuratively) To put an end to; to abandon. “They buried their argument and shook hands.”
- noun (obsolete) A burrow.
- noun A borough; a manor
- proper noun A village and civil parish in Huntingdonshire district, Cambridgeshire (OS grid ref TL2883).
- proper noun A town and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester.
- proper noun A hamlet in Brompton Regis parish, Somerset West and Taunton district, Somerset (OS grid ref SS9427).
- proper noun A village and civil parish in Chichester district, West Sussex (OS grid ref TQ0113).
- proper noun A village in Péruwelz municipality, Hainaut province, Belgium.
- proper noun A commune in Oise department, Hauts-de-France, France.
- proper noun A municipality in Le Haut-Saint-François Regional County Municipality, Estrie region, Quebec, Canada.
- proper noun A habitational surname from Old English.
Synonyms
inurn entomb inhume inter lay to rest immerse swallow swallow up eat up sink forget
Etymology
Middle English birien, berien, from Old English byrġan, from Proto-West Germanic *burgijan, from Proto-Germanic *burgijaną (“to keep safe”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰergʰ- (“to defend, protect”).
Cognate with Icelandic byrgja (“to cover, shut; to hold in”); West Frisian bergje (“to keep”), German bergen (“to save/rescue something”), Danish bjerge (“to save/rescue something or somebody”); also Eastern Lithuanian bir̃ginti (“to save, spare”), Russian бере́чь (beréčʹ, “to spare”), Ossetian ӕмбӕрзын (æmbærzyn, “to cover”).
The spelling with ⟨u⟩ represents the pronunciation of the West Midland and Southern dialects, while the Modern English pronunciation with /ɛ/ is from the Kentish dialects.
Compare typologically Russian хорони́ть (xoronítʹ) (akin to храни́ть (xranítʹ)), Polish chować.
See borough.
The place name means "fort," from Old English burg. Doublet of borough, Brough, and burgh.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A borough; a manor; as, the Bury of St. Edmond's; --
- noun A manor house; a castle. [Prov. Eng.]
- verb To cover out of sight, either by heaping something over, or by placing within something, as earth, etc.; to conceal by covering; to hide; as, to bury coals in ashes; to bury the face in the hands.
- verb Specifically: To cover out of sight, as the body of a deceased person, in a grave, a tomb, or the ocean; to deposit (a corpse) in its resting place, with funeral ceremonies; to inter; to inhume.
Etymology [See 1st Borough.]
Etymology [OE. burien, birien, berien, AS. byrgan; akin to beorgan to protect, OHG. bergan, G. bergen, Icel. bjarga, Sw. berga, Dan. bierge, Goth. baírgan. sq. root95. Cf. Burrow.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bury”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details