bury
pronunciation
How to pronounce bury in British English:
UK [ˈberi]
How to pronounce bury in American English:
US [ˈberi]
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- Verb:
- cover from sight
- place in a grave or tomb
- place in the earth and cover with soil
- enclose or envelop completely, as if by swallowing
- embed deeply
- dismiss from the mind; stop remembering
Word Origin
- bury
- bury: [OE] Modern English bury is a descendant of Old English byrgan, which came from the Germanic base *burg- (source also of English borough). The underlying meaning of the base was ‘protection, shelter’, and in the case of bury this referred to ‘covering a dead body with earth’ (in Old English, bury applied only to interment; the general sense ‘put underground’ did not develop until the 14th century). The derived burial goes back to Old English byrgels, which in Middle English times was mistaken for a plural.=> borough
- bury (v.)
- Old English byrgan "to raise a mound, hide, bury, inter," akin to beorgan "to shelter," from Proto-Germanic *burzjan- "protection, shelter" (cognates: Old Saxon bergan, Dutch bergen, Old Norse bjarga, Swedish berga, Old High German bergan "protect, shelter, conceal," German bergen, Gothic bairgan "to save, preserve"), from PIE root *bhergh- (1) "to hide, protect" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic brego "I preserve, guard"). Related: Buried; burying. Burying-ground "cemetery" attested from 1711. The Old English -y- was a short "oo" sound, like modern French -u-. Under normal circumstances it transformed into Modern English -i- (as in bridge, kiss, listen, sister), but in bury and a few other words (as in merry, knell) it retained a Kentish change to "e" that took place in the late Old English period. In the West Midlands, meanwhile, the Old English -y- sound persisted, slightly modified over time, giving the standard modern pronunciation of blush, much, church.
Example
- 1. Greed will bury even the lucky eventually .
- 2. In his fantasy us , politicians bury differences in bipartisan harmony .
- 3. Do they bury them in canada ?
- 4. Soon we will bury more banks .
- 5. So bury me by some sweet garden-side .