Forms: 4 bur, burre, bire, 4–6 bir, 4–5 bure, byre, 5 byrre, ber(e, beere, beare, 5–6 byr, birr, 7 burr(e, beir(e, biere, 7–8 birre, dial. beer, 9 bir, dial. ber, 8– birr. [a. ON. byrr favoring wind (Sw., Da. bör fair wind, foul gale):—OTeut. *burjo-z (or buri-z), f. beran to bear. Sense 3 is, in part at least, of independent origin, imitating the sound which it names, and is to be compared with BURR.]
† 1. A strong wind; esp. one that carries a vessel on. Obs.
a. 1325. Conception, in Metr. Hom., Introd. 17. The bir it blew als he wald bid.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., C. 148. Þe bur ber to hit baft, þat braste alle her gere.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 12488. Thai … puld vp hor sailes, Hadyn bir at þere backe.
2. The force of the wind, or of any moving body; momentum, impetus; rush. To take or fetch one’s birr: to gather impetus for a leap by a short run or ‘ram-race.’
1382. Wyclif, Isa. v. 28. His wheles as the byre [1388 feersnesse] of the tempest. Ibid., Matt. viii. 32. Loo! in a greet bire, al the droue wente heedlynge in to the see.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 3662. Brethly bessomes with byrre in berynes sailles.
c. 1450. Lonelich, Grail, xlv. 419. And to hire he ran with a ful gret ber.
1580. Sidney, Arcadia, 54. Carried with the Beere of violent loue.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXII. viii. 197. And giving way backward fetch their feese or beire againe.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Saulter, Il recule pour mieux saulter, He goes backe to take burre, or to leape the better.
1790. Burns, Election Ball., iii. Thus I break aff wi’ a’ my birr.
1867. E. Waugh, Owd Blanket, ii. 37, in Lanc. Gloss., Thae’d no need to come i’ sich a ber.
† b. A charge in battle; an attack, a fight. Obs.
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 290. I schal bide þe fyrst bur, as bare as I sitte.
1382. Wyclif, 2 Sam. xi. 23. We, the bure made [Vulg. impetu facto], pursueden hem into the ȝate.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 11141. All the bent of þat birr blody beronnen.
c. 1440. Bone Flor., 659. Garcy … arayed hys batels in that bere.
c. A thrust, a violent push or blow; also fig.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., A. 176. Such a burre myȝt make myn herte blunt.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 1244. A ȝonge knight … suet to þe Duke With a bir on þe brest, þat backeward he ȝode.
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., III. xvi. (1849), 137. Dashed my head with such a bir against the branch of a prostrate tree.
d. Bodily force exerted against anything, might.
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 2261. With alle þe bur in his body he ber it on lofte.
1382. Wyclif, James iii. 4. Shippes … ben born aboute of a litel gouernayle, where the bire [impetus] of a man dressinge shal wole.
1674. Ray, N. C. Wds., 5. Beer, Birre, Beare, force, night. With aw my beer (Chesh.), with all my force.
1823. Galt, Entail, III. vii. 70. Ye need na mair waste your bir about it.
e. Force of pronunciation, energetic utterance.
1825. Ld. Cockburn, Mem., ii. 133. What the Scotch call the Birr … the emphatic energy of his pronunciation.
1827. J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 118. Just such a voice … in its laigh notes there’s a sort of birr … that betokens power.
1883. W. Jolly, Life J. Duncan, xvii. 181. He told Charles the story ‘with great birr.’
3. An energetic whirring sound, such as that of a moor-fowl’s flight, the running-down of a clock, or the vigorous trilling of the letter r.
1837. R. Nicoll, Poems (1842), 82. The birr o’ Scotland’s spinnin’-wheel.
1856. Strong, Glasgow & Clubs, 207. Never did a Parisian badaud rattle the R with greater birr.
1876. Smiles, Sc. Natur., viii. (ed. 4), 136. The birr of the moorcock and the scream of the merlin.
