burr

noun

1. 1

   A sharp, pointy object, such as a sliver or splinter.

2. 2

   A small piece of material left on an edge after a cutting operation.

   You left a bunch of burrs on those parts yesterday. You've already been told not to miss the deburring operation.

   But the graver, in ploughing furrows in the surface of the copper, raises corresponding ridges or burrs

3. 3

   A thin flat piece of metal, formed from a sheet by punching; a small washer put on the end of a rivet before it is swaged down.

4. 4

   historicalA broad iron ring on a tilting lance just below the grip, to prevent the hand from slipping.

5. 5

   historicalA metal ring at the top of the hand-rest on a spear.

   And there kyng Arthur smote syr mordred vnder the shelde wyth a foyne of his spere thorughoute the body more than a fadom / And whan syr Mordred felte that he had hys dethes wounde / He thryst hym self wyth the myght that he had vp to the bur of kynge Arthurs spere / And right so he smote his fader Arthur wyth his swerde holden in bothe his handes

   burr or ring of iron behind the hand

   The front of it was defended by an iron-plate, called a vam-plat, that is, an avant-plate, and behind it was a broad iron ring, called a burr.

   We are made to witness a cathartic shuffling-off of mortalities and of hatreds: Mordred's pulling himself up to the 'burr' of Arthur's spear is Malory's own detail and one of the most memorable in the book.

6. 6

   The ear lobe.

7. 7

   A burr knot or burl.

   We notice wild bees gathering sap in a burr of the third mango tree[.]

8. 8

   The knot at the bottom of an antler.

9. 9

   A revolving disk or cone with abrasive surfaces used to grind hard products in a grinder or mill.

   burr grinder

   The coffee guys insist that the single most important investment you can make if you brew coffee at home is a burr coffee grinder that crushes whole coffee beans by moving them through a grinding wheel. The burr chops the coffee into uniformly sized pieces, which enables the water to run through it and extract evenly.

10. 10

    Variant of burAlternative form of bur (“rough, prickly husk around the seeds or fruit of some plants”).

    […] nay Friar, I am a kind of Burre, I ſhal ſticke.

    But cockle, spurge, according to their law / Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, / You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.

verb

1. 1

   To grind using a burr (revolving disk or cone with abrasive surfaces).

noun

1. 1

   A rough humming sound.

2. 2

   A uvular "r" sound, or (by extension) an accent characterized by this sound.

   Foote’s mimicry was exquisitely ludicrous, but it was all caricature. He could take off only some strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle.

   “That man Glass has been with him again; I heard them talking through the door quite plain. Two separate voices: for James speaks low, with a burr, and the other voice was high and quavery.”

   He spoke with the deep rich burr of his race and with a structure of speech that I cannot reproduce here.

   The Scottish burr may often prove incomprehensible to English ears, but the Foreign Office apparently considers the accent so impenetrable that it has rejected a Russian student's application to study in Scotland on the grounds that she might not understand the language.

verb

1. 1

   To pronounce with a uvular "r".

2. 2

   To make a rough humming sound.

   The first thing Lucy noticed as she went in was a burring sound, and the first thing she saw was a kind-looking old she-beaver sitting in the corner with a thread in her mouth working busily at her sewing machine, and it was from it that the sound came.

noun

1. 1

   Synonym of brough (“halo around the sun or moon”)

   Far burr, near rain; Near burr, far rain.

   The larger the burr the nearer the rain.

   ... If t'bur o' t'muin be far away / Mek heaste an' house yer cworn an' hay; / Bit if t'bur be nar t'muin / We'll hev a clash bit nit sae suin. Prevost, p. 48. Prevost, p. 48.

noun

1. 1

   Variant of burlAlternative spelling of burl.

Forms

plural

burrs

past tense

burred

past participle

burred

present participle

burring

third person singular

burrs