-bury en · X
Pronunciation
- /-bɘɹi/ (New-Zealand)
- (Southern-England) audio
- /-bɹi/ (New-Zealand)
- (Southern-England) audio
- /-bɹɪ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /-bəɹɪ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /-bəɹi/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /-bɹi/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- (Southern-England) audio
Etymology
From Old English byriġ, the dative case of burg (“fortified place”) (whence borough); doublet of -borough and -burg. Due to the collapse of the case system between Old and Middle English, many placenames retain a fossilized dative form, as places would most commonly have been invoked in the dative (after a preposition in, at, to etc.).
Meanings
-
(morpheme) A placename suffix indicating a fortified place.
Some of these hilltops – Sidbury, Quarley, Danebury and Woolbury – were later, in the sixth and fifth centuries, appropriated for the building of hillforts.
1983, Barry Cunliffe, chapter 3, in Danebury Hillfort, Stroud: Tempus: