burr








noun

  1. Also buhr. a protruding, ragged edge raised on the surface of metal during drilling, shearing, punching, or engraving.
  2. a rough or irregular protuberance on any object, as on a tree.
  3. a small, handheld, power-driven milling cutter, used by machinists and die makers for deepening, widening, or undercutting small recesses.
  4. a lump of brick fused or warped in firing.

verb (used with object)

  1. to form a rough point or edge on.
  2. deburr.

noun

  1. a washer placed at the head of a rivet.
  2. a blank punched out of a piece of sheet metal.

noun

  1. a pronunciation of the r-sound as a uvular trill, as in certain Northern English dialects.
  2. a pronunciation of the r-sound as an alveolar flap or trill, as in Scottish English.
  3. any pronunciation popularly considered rough or nonurban.
  4. a whirring noise.

verb (used without object)

  1. to speak with a burr.
  2. to speak roughly, indistinctly, or inarticulately.
  3. to make a whirring sound.

verb (used with object)

  1. to pronounce (words, sounds, etc.) with a burr.

noun

  1. burstone.

noun

  1. Aaron,1756–1836, vice president of the U.S. 1801–05.

noun

  1. a small power-driven hand-operated rotary file, esp for removing burrs or for machining recesses
  2. a rough edge left on a workpiece after cutting, drilling, etc
  3. a rough or irregular protuberance, such as a burl on a tree
  4. British a burl on the trunk or root of a tree, sliced across for use as decorative veneer

noun, verb

  1. a variant spelling of bur

verb (tr)

  1. to form a rough edge on (a workpiece)
  2. to remove burrs from (a workpiece) by grinding, filing, etc; deburr

noun

  1. phonetics an articulation of (r) characteristic of certain English dialects, esp the uvular fricative trill of Northumberland or the retroflex r of the West of England
  2. a whirring sound

verb

  1. to pronounce (words) with a burr
  2. to make a whirring sound

noun

  1. a washer fitting around the end of a rivet
  2. a blank punched out of sheet metal

noun

  1. short for buhrstone
  2. a mass of hard siliceous rock surrounded by softer rock

noun

  1. Aaron . 1756–1836, US vice-president (1800–04), who fled after killing a political rival in a duel and plotted to create an independent empire in the western US; acquitted (1807) of treason
n.

“rough sound of the letter -r-” (especially that common in Northumberland), 1760, later extended to “northern accented speech” in general. Possibly the sound of the word is imitative of the speech peculiarity itself, or it was adapted from one of the senses of bur (q.v.), perhaps from the phrase to have a bur in (one’s) throat (late 14c.), which was a figure of speech for “feel a choking sensation, huskiness.” OED says the Scottish -r- is a lingual trill, not a true burr.

n.

  1. Variant ofbur

  1. A type of pseudocarp in which the outer surface possesses hooks or barbs. Burs become caught in the feathers or hair of animals, which then carry them away to disperse the seeds.
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