burgess

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English burgeis,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Anglo-Norman burgeis, borgeys,^[6][7][8][9] also Old French borjois, the source of the later bourgeois,^[6][5][7][3] from Late Latin burgēnsis (“belonging to a fort or town”),^{[5][10][11][12]} formed from burgus (“castle, fort; in medieval Latin, a fortified town”) and the suffix -ēnsis, the source of -ese.^{[4][7][8][13]} The Late Latin noun is of Germanic origin,^[14][13][11] from Proto-Germanic *burgz,^[1][15] the source of borough.^[4][14][11] The OED notes that surnames recorded from 1107–28 may imply earlier use, and that the same French word was later borrowed again, giving the modern English adjective and noun.^[6] The Anglo-Norman word, recorded from 1155, meant a citizen or townsman, as opposed to a knight.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

An inhabitant of a borough or town; a citizen: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was used mostly of the freemen of a town, the merchants and master craftsmen of the guilds, with full civic rights.^[2] Chaucer uses burgeys four times, for a citizen or civic official.^[16] From about 1390, in Piers Plowman, it also named officials with judicial or executive power in a town,^[6] and since about 1425 a person elected to represent the citizens, especially a borough's member of Parliament;^[6][4] Barnhart dates the sense "member of a legislature" to 1472.^[3] In colonial Virginia and Maryland it was used of members of the elected assembly, and in Pennsylvania and Connecticut of members of a town's governing council.^[5][17] Between 1586 and 1649 it could also mean any inhabitant, even of animals.^[6] Johnson (1755) gives both "a citizen; a freeman of a city" and "a representative of a town corporate".^[18] In Fife a burgess could be a verb: newly made burgesses were "burgessed" by having their buttocks struck against a stone.^[19][6]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – an inhabitant of a borough; a citizen.^[6][3]
• c. 1390 – a town official with judicial or executive authority.^[6]
• c. 1425 – a representative of the citizens in a deliberative body.^[6]
• 1472 – a member of a legislature (Barnhart).^[3]
• 1586 – any inhabitant (obsolete by 1649).^[6]
• 1664 – verb, to make the object of a ceremony for a new burgess (obsolete by 1834).^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly historical) A citizen or freeman of an English or Scottish borough; an inhabitant of a town.^[20][17][6]
2. (historical) A Member of Parliament for a borough, corporate town or university.^[20][17][6]
3. A magistrate or member of a town's governing body; in Pennsylvania, the chief officer of a borough.^[17][6]
4. (historical) A member of the elected assembly of colonial Virginia or Maryland.^[20][17][5]

Related words

• burgher
• bourgeois
• borough
• burg

Usage notes

The Burgess Shale, a fossil-bearing rock formation in the Canadian Rockies, is not named from this word but from Burgess Pass, itself named after Alexander MacKinnon Burgess.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
15. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
17. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
20. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins