burgher
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈbɜrɡər/
- Archaic
:
burgés
- For example, one Magdeburg burgher supplied Alberus with fish.
- burghers of Magdeburg
- burghers and peasants
- two burghers
Examples
-
And, of course, the good burghers of Detroit flipped out and said, "You can't do that; the Downtown is coming back!
-
Middle-class ostentation, however, was seen as incompatible with the simple virtues desirable in the burgher class.
Academic text (1990) -
Your family were burghers there?
-
Might it have been one of the respectable burghers?
Academic text (1999) -
Emperor clashed with pope, prince with king... and burgher with nobleman.
-
Literacy had spread from monastery to manor, to lawyer and notary, burgher and master craftsman, even to apprentice.
Academic text (1992) -
The pigs raise a miraculous hue and cry, the burghers come to the scene, and the malefactors are discovered.
Academic text (2005) -
The brisk confidence of the Midwestern burgher was absent, replaced by a more somber mien.
Blog text (33) -
The good burghers of Geneva and Zurich were shocked by the gradual proliferation of needle parks in their pristine cities.
Academic text (1994) -
In medieval Europe, a burgher was often a merchant or local leader in the town.
Synonyms
17
8.6
A person who lives in a town or city rather than in the countryside
13
8.9
A person who lives in a town, not a student or visitor
1
4.8
A man who lives in a town or city
1
9.9
A town citizen who has full local rights, often in old England
1
9.8
A person who lives in a town and seems out of place in the country
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Burgher comes from an old German word burg meaning 'town' or 'fort', the same root you see in place names like Pittsburgh and in borough. A burgher was a person who lived in and had rights in a town, so the word means a town citizen in medieval times.