[f. BURROW sb.1]
1. intr. Of animals: To make a burrow or small excavation, esp. as a hiding- or dwelling-place.
1771. Barrington, in Phil. Trans., LXII. 10. They … burrow under ground.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 218. Their dens which they [alligators] form by burrowing far under ground.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 307. The larvæ burrow in the wood.
1831. Southey, Lit. Bk. in Green & G., Wks. X. 380. Worms … Burrowing safely in thy side.
b. fig. To lodge as in a burrow, hide oneself.
1614. T. Adams, Divell’s Banq., 47. These Monsters are in the Wildernesse! No they borough in Sion.
1640. Bastwick, Lord Bps., vi. F ij. These Lordly Prelates … will not suffer any one … to burrow within their Diocese.
a. 1848. Marryat, R. Reefer, vii. We were forced to burrow in mean lodgings.
1884. W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 95. Some dim cave where he [an anchorite] had burrowed With bats and owls.
c. fig. To bore, penetrate, or make one’s way under the surface; also to burrow one’s way.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Observ., 169. I have known many diseases which burrow.
1831. Brewster, Newton (1855), II. xxiv. 340. To burrow for heresy among the obscurities of thought.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., II. 637/1. The ulcer … as it burrows deeply … may perforate the muscular wall.
1851. Gladstone, Glean., VI. xliii. 29. Each local body has to find, I should say rather to burrow its own way.
1859. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 260. We were burrowing through its bewildering passages.
2. refl. with passive pple.: To hide away in, or as in, a burrow.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., IX. li. 233. These lie burrowed, safe from skath.
1807. Crabbe, Par. Reg., I. 221. An infant … Left by neglect, and burrowed in that bed.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. V. v. 282. A blustering Effervescence, of brawlers and spouters, which, at the flash of chivalrous broadswords … will burrow itself in dens.
3. trans. To construct by burrowing, to excavate.
1831. Q. Rev., XLIV. 357. Most of their habitations were wretched cabins … burrowed in the sides of the mountains.
