[F. bourg:—late L. burg-us, ad. WGer. burg: see BOROUGH.] Used by historical writers in the earlier sense of town or village under the shadow of a castle; or of ‘continental’ as distinguished from English town; occasionally also in the modern French sense of ‘market town.’
c. 1450. Merlin, xv. 236. Thei brent bourgs, and townes and castelles.
1536. Remed. Sedition, 15 b. Many bourges in Germany, haue a great nombre of Jewes in them.
1690. Lond. Gaz., No. 2603/1. A great Bourg called Canina.
c. 1700. Gentl. Instr. (1732), 266. He can only lose an abandon’d Bourg.
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk. Bk. (1872), 197. They reached the bourg of Rossillon.
1859. Tennyson, Enid, 276. Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg The murmur of the world!
1864. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., III. 47. The Flemings … had settled in and about the bourg and its spreading suburbs.
