dial. or techn. Forms: 5 boroughe, burgh, 7 borough, 7– burrow. See also BARROW sb.1 [The form taken in some parts of Engl., esp. Cornwall, by the OE. beorʓ, ME. berȝ, berw, borȝ, borw, burgh hill, of which the more general representative is BARROW sb.1, and a by-form BERRY sb.2, q.v.]
A heap or mound; in earlier use a hillock; now, esp. a heap of refuse made in mining or beat-burning. See beat-borough under BEAT sb.3
885–1393. [see BARROW sb.1].
1480. Robt. Devyll, 20. Farre from boroughe or hyll.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 314/1. This holy man sawe upon the burgh on the ground the deuyls makyng joye.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 19 b. Before ploughing time, they scatter abroad those Beat-boroughs … upon the ground. Ibid. (1723), 148 a. One Gidly … digged downe a little hillocke, or Borough.
1663. Charleton, Chor. Gigant., 39. Those Tumuli, or (as we call them) Burrows.
1696. C. Merret, in Phil. Trans., XIX. 351. Hills … called Burrows … supposed to be Sepulchral Monuments.
1784. J. Twamley, Dairying Exempl., 125. Prepare a burrow of soil … from old Turf.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 550. Burrow, a miner’s term for a heap of rubbish.
1880. East Cornw. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Burrow, a mound or heap; a sepulchral tumulus. Beat-burrow, a heap of burnt turves.
