burgess

noun

1. 1

   An inhabitant of a borough with full rights; a citizen.

   In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. In this way all respectable burgesses, down to fifty years ago, spent their evenings.

   If any burgess be appealed of a plea whereon wager of battle may issue by a villein or outdweller , let him defend himself by oath, that is to say by the 36 men, unless he is challenged in respect of a crime that the law requires him to defend by battle, in no case ought a burgess to fight against a villein if he have challenged him unless before the dispute he shall have quitted the burgage.

2. 2

   historicalA town magistrate.

3. 3

   historicalA representative of a borough in the Parliament.

4. 4

   historicalA member of the House of Burgesses, a legislative body in colonial America, established by the Virginia Company to provide civil rule in the colonies.

5. 5

   A person who pays municipal taxes, a ratepayer.

Forms

plural

burgesses