borough
pronunciation
How to pronounce borough in British English:
UK [ˈbʌrə]
How to pronounce borough in American English:
US [ˈbɜːroʊ]
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- Noun:
- one of the administrative divisions of a large city
- an English town that forms the constituency of a member of Parliament
Word Origin
- borough
- borough: [OE] Borough (Old English burg or burh) comes from Germanic *burgs ‘fortress’ (whence also German burg ‘castle, stronghold’). It was a derivative of the base *burg- ‘protect’ (whence also bury), a variant of *berg- (source of English barrow ‘mound’ and German berg ‘mountain’) and *borg- (source of English borrow).At some time during the prehistoric Germanic period a progression in meaning began to take place from ‘fortress’ (which had largely died out in English by 1000), through ‘fortified town’, to simply ‘town’. Romance languages borrowed the word, giving for instance French bourg, from which English gets burgess [13] and bourgeois [16]. Burrow [13] is probably a variant form.=> bourgeois, burgess, burrow, bury
- borough (n.)
- Old English burg, burh "a dwelling or dwellings within a fortified enclosure," from Proto-Germanic *burgs "hill fort, fortress" (cognates: Old Frisian burg "castle," Old Norse borg "wall, castle," Old High German burg, buruc "fortified place, citadel," German Burg "castle," Gothic baurgs "city"), from PIE root *bhergh- (2) "high," with derivatives referring to hills, hill forts, fortified elevations (source also of Old English beorg "hill;" see barrow (n.2)). In German and Old Norse, chiefly as "fortress, castle;" in Gothic, "town, civic community." Meaning shifted in Middle English from "fortress," to "fortified town," to simply "town" (especially one possessing municipal organization or sending representatives to Parliament). In U.S. (originally Pennsylvania, 1718) often an incorporated town; in Alaska, however, it is the equivalent of a county. The Scottish form is burgh. The Old English dative singular byrig survives in many place names as -bury.
Example
- 1. What is your favorite borough of new york city ?
- 2. The lawyers have represented clients from every borough in the manhattan court , with applicants ranging from occasional cross-dressers to people who have completed gender reassignment surgery .
- 3. At the mossbourne academy , in the heart of london 's recently riot-torn borough of hackney , sir michael wilshire heads a school which was closed for poor discipline in 1995 , but is now one of the most widely-praised academies in the country .
- 4. Few tourists find their way to the borough of newham in london 's east end , though that will change in 2012 when the olympic games arrive .
- 5. Mr. paulson , a soft-spoken native of the new york borough of queens , was an overlooked investor for much of his career .