Bur, burr sb.

Forms: 4 borre, 4–7 burre, 6– bur, 7– burr. [app. identical or cogn. with Da. borre bur, burdock, Sw. borra sea-urchin, and in comb. kard-borre burdock, though the word is not found in ON., nor in Eng. before the 14th c. A derivation from F. bourre ‘rough hair, flock of wool,’ labors under the difficulty that the F. word is not found ever to have had the sense that Eng. bur shares with Da. and Sw. borre; nor does the Eng. word show the wider sense of F. bourre.

  The spelling of this and various other words or senses of words, phonetically and perhaps even etymologically identical with it, is very unsettled: in nearly all burr is an earlier spelling, but in the present word bur is now usual. See further under BURR.]

  1.  Any rough or prickly seed-vessel or flower-head of a plant: esp. the flower-head of the Burdock (Arctium lappa); also, the small seed-vessel of the Goose-grass (Galium aparine) and other plants; the husk of the chestnut.

c. 1330.  Arth. & Merl., 8290. Togider thai cleued … So with other doth the burre.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 56. Burre, lappa, glis.

a. 1547.  J. Heywood, Four P’s, in Dodsley (1780), I. 87. Hys eares as ruged as burres.

1600.  Shaks., A. Y. L., I. iii. 13. They are but burs, Cosen, throwne vpon thee in holiday foolerie … our very petty-coates will catch them.

1684.  R. Waller, Nat. Exper., 87. Like the Burre or Husk of a Chestnut.

1779.  Mrs. Delany, Lett., Ser. II. II. 425. Goose grass or cleavers … does not bear burrs (which are the seed vessels) till after the time of its flowring.

c. 1817.  Hogg, Tales & Sk., III. 316. The burr of a Scots thistle.

1861.  Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., III. 87. Fruits, beset with prickles, are truly burs, clinging very readily to any object.

1874.  E. P. Roe, Open. Chestnut Burr, xiii. 150. She … took the burr from his hand, and daintily plucking out the chestnut tossed the burr rather contemptuously away.

  b.  Phr. To stick (cleave, cling, etc.) like a bur.

c. 1330.  [see above].

1514.  Barclay, Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (1847), 43. Together they cleve more fast then do burres.

1603.  Shaks., Meas. for M., I. iii. 189. I am a kind of Burre, I shal sticke.

1712.  Arbuthnot, John Bull (1727), 59. When a fellow stuck like a bur, that there was no shaking him off.

1810.  Crabbe, Borough, v. Friends who will hang like burs upon his coat.

1865.  Merivale, Rom. Emp., VIII. lxiv. 81. It fastens itself like a burr on the memory.

  c.  The female catkin or ‘cone’ of the hop before fertilization. [Possibly a different word: in Fr. the vine when coming into bud is said to be en bourre; cf. 5.]

1846.  J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric., I. 396. The male hop has its … pollen previously perfected, so as to impregnate the stigma or bur of the female. Ibid., 403. About the middle of this month [July] the hop … begins to put forth bloom, which is called ‘coming out into bur.’

1881.  Whitehead, Hops, 51. It is worse than useless to wash the plants after they are in burr, or blossom.

  2.  Any plant that produces burs, esp. Arctium lappa (the Burdock), and the genus Xanthium.

1480.  Cath. Angl., 48. A Burre … paliurus.

1562.  Bulleyn, Bk. Simples, 38 a. The great Burre, which is more commonly known then commended.

1585.  Lloyd, Treas. Health, F viij. The rote of a little burre sodden in Vinegar.

1634.  Milton, Comus, 350. Where may she wander now … amongst rude burs and thistles?

1815.  Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul (1845), I. 33. We found ourselves … among sand-hills, stunted bushes, burs, and phoke.

1842.  Tennyson, Day-Dream, 66. Bur and brake and briar.

  3.  fig. That which clings like a bur; a thing or person difficult to get rid of or ‘shake off.’

1590.  Shaks., Mids. N., III. ii. 260. Hang off thou cat, thou bur.

1633.  Heywood, Eng. Trav., III. Wks. 1874, IV. 51. This burre will still cleaue to me; what, no meanes To shake him off?

1690.  B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Burre, a Hanger on, or Dependant.

1826.  J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 119. The burr has a pawky expression that’s no canny.

  4.  fig. ‘Bur in the throat’: anything that appears to stick in the throat or that produces a choking sensation, accumulation of phlegm, huskiness; ‘a lump in the throat.’

1393.  Langl., P. Pl., C. XX. 306. Smoke and smorþre … Til he be bler-eyed oþer blynde · and þe borre [v.r. burre] in hus þrote.

1609.  Ev. Wom. in Hum., II. ii. in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. Theres hemming indeede, like a Cat … with a burre in her throate.

1641.  Milton, Ch. Govt., Wks. 1738, I. 74. Their honest … natures coming to the Universities … were sent home again with … a scholastical Bur in their throats.

1749.  Chesterf., Lett., II. ccxiii. 319. I hemm’d once or twice (for it gave me a bur in my throat).

  5.  A knob or knot in a tree; also, one of the ‘buds’ or pimples characteristic of the farcy. [Perhaps a distinct word: cf. F. bourre vine-bud (see 1 c) bourrelet ‘round swelling on a tree.’]

1725.  Bradley, Fam. Dict., II. s.v. Maple, That which is fullest of Knots and Burs is of greatest Value.

1725.  Lond. Gaz., No. 6397/2. Several Burs, Remains of the Farcy.

1869.  M. T. Masters, Veget. Teratol., 347. It is probable that some of the large ‘gnaurs’ or ‘burrs,’ met with in elms, &c., also in certain varieties of apples, are clusters of adventitious buds.

  6.  The rounded knob forming the base of a deer’s horn. [Cf. BURL, bud of a deer’s horn.]

1575.  Turberv., Bk. Venerie, 236. The round roll of pyrled horne that is next to the head of an harte is called the Burre.

1677.  N. Cox, Gentl. Recreat. (1706), 65. The Bur is next the Head; and that which is about the Bur, is called Pearles.

1736.  Dale, in Phil. Trans., XXXIX. 386. The Moose hath a branched Brow-Antler between the Burr and the Palm.

1828.  Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., I. 148. Horns … with a branch above the burr pointing forward.

  b.  (See quot.)

1753.  Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., Burrs denote bits of flesh adjoining to the horns of a beef’s hide, cut off by poor women after it is brought to market.

  7.  dial. See quots. [? from sense 1.]

1863.  Atkinson, Danby Provinc., N. Riding Yorksh., Bur, the stone or other obstacle placed behind the wheel.

1875.  Whitby Gloss. (E. D. S.), Bur, (1) an impediment; an annoyance; (2) the drag-chain and shoe for fastening up a carriage wheel when going down a hill.

  8.  Comb., as bur-breeding, -head, -leaf-, -root; bur-bark, the fibrous bark of Triumfetta semitriloba, a tropical shrub bearing prickly fruits or burs; bur-flag = bur-reed; bur-grass, Sc. ? a species of Carex; bur-knot = BUR 6; bur-marigold, popular name of the genus Bidens; † bur-nettle, perhaps Urtica pilulifera; bur-oak, Quercus macrocarpa of N. America; bur-parsley, the genus Caucalis, esp. C. daucoides, an umbelliferous weed with prickly fruit; bur-reed, common name of the genus Sparganium; bur-thistle, Carduus lanceolatus, also called Spear-thistle; bur-weed, Xanthium strumarium; also other plants producing burs, as Galium aparine (Goose-grass), Caucalis nodosa, and the genus Triumfetta. See also BURDOCK.

1756.  P. Browne, Jamaica, 233. The *Bur-Bark. The plant is common in Jamaica.

1630.  Drayton, Muses Elysium, III. 30 (R.).

1834.  Brit. Husb., I. xxix. 463. A coarse kind of grass called *‘bur-grass.’

1840.  Browning, Sordello, V. 412. ‘Spear-heads for battle, *burr-heads for the joust.’

1483.  Cath. Angl., 48. A *Burre hylle, lappetum, est locus vbi crescunt lappe.

1615.  Lawson, Orch. & Gard., III. vii. (1668), 15. A *bur-knot … taken from an Apple-tree.

1634.  Bp. Hall, Occas. Medit., cxiii. Wks. (1808), 204. On a *bur-leaf.

1833.  in Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, I. No. 1. 29.

1879.  Prior, Plant-n., *Bur Marigold, a composite flower allied to the marigold, with seeds that adhere to the clothes like burrs.

1713.  Petiver, in Phil. Trans., XXVIII. 36. Common *Bur-Nettle.

1865.  C. A. Johns, in Treas. Bot., I. 241. The *Bur Parsley … is a British plant, growing in corn-fields in a chalky soil.

1597.  Gerard, Herbal, I. xxx. § 2. 41. These plants of some are called Sparganium … I rather call them *Burre Reede.

1769.  Sir J. Hill, Fam. Herbal (1789), 98. Bur-Reed, a common water-plant, with rough heads of seeds.

1883.  G. C. Davies, in Pall Mall Gaz., 26 Oct., 4/2. The eye to see beauty in bur-reeds and sweet-sedges.

1650.  trans. Bacon’s Life & Death, 43. Asparagus, pith of Artichokes and *Burre-roots boiled.

1787.  Burns, Ep. Miss Scott, ii. The rough *burr-thistle, spreading wide.

1783.  Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), I. s.v. Burr, *Burrweed, Sparganium ramosum.

1882.  G. Allen, Colours of Flowers, iv. 84. Unless … like … Xanthium strumarium, burweed, they have declined as far as colourless or green florets.

  ¶ See also BURR sb. in all senses.