BUR

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

BURAuthored
The Law Mind • 675 words
Definition
In historical English law, "bur" appears as a fragment or abbreviation in legal context connected to terms of the "burg" family — principally BURGBOTE and BURGLAR — rather than as a standalone legal term of art. Burrill's Law Dictionary does not define "bur" independently; the fragment appears in the course of entries treating related Saxon-derived terms concerning fortified towns, castle precincts, and the obligations and offenses associated with them. Where the root "bur-" or "burg-" appears in legal texts, it derives from the Saxon *burg*, meaning a castle, fortified place, or town. This root anchors a cluster of distinct legal concepts: burgbote (a tribute for the repair of fortifications), burglary (felonious breaking and entering of a dwelling), and related terms distinguishing categories of criminal actors — the *fur* (thief), *latro* (brigand), *prædo* (plunderer), and *robbator* (robber) — each carrying different legal consequences under early English law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A rough, prickly husk around the seeds or fruit of some plants; any plant bearing such husks; a rotary cutting implement with variously shaped heads; an alternative form of "burr" (a small piece of material left by a manufacturing process). Historical common usage: Not applicable as a standalone legal term; the common English word "bur" (or "burr") refers to the prickly seed-case of plants such as burdock or chestnut. The gap here is near-total. The common English "bur" and the legal root "bur-" share only orthographic similarity. A researcher encountering "bur-" prefixed terms in legal sources should treat the root as Saxon in origin and legal in character, entirely unrelated to the botanical or mechanical senses.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter "bur" not as a discrete legal term but as a truncated form or root in manuscript sources, abridgments, and older print dictionaries where column breaks, running heads, or pagination artifacts cut entries mid-word. Burrill's own text at the relevant pages presents "bur-" as the tail end of one entry and the beginning of another, making it easy to mistake a printing artifact for a defined term. The practical navigational point: if your source text presents "bur" in isolation, examine the surrounding text for context. The probability is high that the intended term is BURGBOTE, BURGLARY, BURGAGE, or another burg-family entry. Early English legal sources — Fleta in particular, which Burrill cites — use Latin forms (*burgus*, *burgator*) alongside Saxon-derived English terms, and the two traditions do not always map cleanly onto each other. Researchers working with Fleta (lib. 1, c. 16 and c. 20; lib. 2, c. 52) on questions of criminal classification should note that Fleta's taxonomy of offenders — distinguishing the *prædo*, *robbator*, *latro*, and *fur* — was jurisprudentially significant in establishing the gradations between robbery, theft, and burglary. The "bur-" root as it appears in that context is always in service of the burglary/burglar conceptual cluster, not a separate offense or obligation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill does not treat "bur" as an independent entry. The term surfaces only as a typographical or structural artifact at the transition between entries on page 231–232, where the burgbote entry begins and the burglar discussion continues. This is consistent with Burrill's organizational method of grouping Saxon-root terms in sequence. No divergence across sources is meaningful here because no historical legal dictionary treats "bur" as a term of art in its own right. The absence is itself informative: researchers encountering the isolated string in a legal context should not assign it independent doctrinal weight.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: BURGLARY; BURGBOTE; CRIMINAL CLASSIFICATIONS IN EARLY ENGLISH LAW
Related Terms
BURGBOTE — tribute for repair of town fortifications BURGLARY — the primary legal concept carried by the "burg-" root BURGLAR — the criminal actor defined in relation to burglary BURGAGE — tenure in a fortified town FUR — Latin term for thiefdistinguished from burglar in early English law LATRO — brigand or highway robber in early English legal taxonomy PRÆDO — plunderer; distinct from thief and burglar in Fleta's classification
BURmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867
( 231 ) ed from the prædo and robbator (robber) as well as the latro and fur, (thief). Fleta, lib. 1, c. 16, § 6. Id. c. 20, § 5. Id. lib. 2, c. 52, § 9. See Burglar. BURGBOTE, Burghbote. Sax. [from burg, a castle, or town, and bote, reparation.] In old English law. A tribute or contri6, cited in Blount, voc. Bound. And see Reg. Orig. 263 b. Reg. Jud. 84 b. ( 232 ) same capacity to be exempt from certain gensis, burgarius.) Williem, King, grets burthens, and to be subject to certain liaWilliem, bisceop, & Godfred portrefan, & bilities. 3 Steph. Com. 189. Domesday ealle tha burghwarn binnan London, &c.; Book, cited ibid. Spelman, voc. Burgarii. William, King, greets William, bishop, Stat. Merton, c. 7. and Godfrey, portgreve, and all the burgesses within London. The commencement of a charter granted by William the Conqueror to the city of London. Spelman. Cowell, voc. Portgreve. Blount, h. v. (233) include offences committed by day as well as by night, and in other buildings than dwelling-houses; and various degrees of the crime have been established by statute in several of the states. Wharton's Am. Crim. Law, 350, 352. **The term burglary, according to Spelman, is of Norman origin, the corresponding term in Saxon law being husbrec. It is usually supposed to be derived either from the Lat. burgus, a town, dwelling or enclosed place, and latrocinium, robbery, or from Fr. bourg, and larrecin, of similar significations; its radical meaning being the robbery, (or the breaking into, with a view to the robbery) of any fenced or enclosed place, as distinguished from the open country. Spelman, voc. Burglaria. Cowell. See Burgus. Hence it originally signified the breaking open, not only of a dwellinghouse, but of a church, and also the breaking of the walls or gates of a town (burgus), or city, (which, after the civil law, were anciently considered sacred,) with intent to commit a felony. Spelman. Bract. fol. 8, 207 b. So Britton defines burglars to be "those who feloniously, in times of peace, break churches, or the dwelling-houses of others, or the walls or gates of cities, or burghs." Britt. c. 10. The circumstance of breaking by night, (noctanter,) was not originally considered a characteristic of this crime, but seems to have been introduced in the reign of Edward IV. Spelman. 4 Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, 539. Crabb's Hist. E. L. 309. Bracton classes burglars with robbers and murderers, who practice their wickedness by day and by night; (murdritores, et robbatores, et burglatores, qui malitiam suam exercent die ac nocte.) Bract. fol. 115 b.
burnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A rough, prickly husk around the seeds or fruit of some plants. | Any of several plants having such husks. | A rotary cutting implement having a selection of variously shaped heads. | Alternative form of burr (“small piece of material”).
Burname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A surname.

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