BURGESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

• BURGESS (noun)
  The noun BURGESS has 2 senses:

1. English writer of satirical novels (1917-1993)

2. a citizen of an English borough

  Familiarity information: BURGESS used as a noun is rare.

• BURGESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

English writer of satirical novels (1917-1993)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Anthony Burgess; Burgess

Instance hypernyms:

author; writer (writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A citizen of an English borough

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

burgess; burgher

Hypernyms ("burgess" is a kind of...):

Englishman (a man who is a native or inhabitant of England)

 Context examples 

He was but sixteen, with his gristle not yet all set into bone, when he fought and beat Gipsy Lee, of Burgess Hill, who called himself the “Cock of the South Downs.”

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"I grant that as authorities to quote they are most excellent—the two foremost literary critics in the United States. Every school teacher in the land looks up to Vanderwater as the Dean of American criticism. Yet I read his stuff, and it seems to me the perfection of the felicitous expression of the inane. Why, he is no more than a ponderous bromide, thanks to Gelett Burgess. And Praps is no better. His 'Hemlock Mosses,' for instance is beautifully written. Not a comma is out of place; and the tone—ah!—is lofty, so lofty. He is the best-paid critic in the United States. Though, Heaven forbid! he's not a critic at all. They do criticism better in England.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Not a soul suspected anything of the matter, not even Nancy, who, poor soul! came crying to me the day after, in a great fright for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, as well as not knowing how to get to Plymouth; for Lucy it seems borrowed all her money before she went off to be married, on purpose we suppose to make a show with, and poor Nancy had not seven shillings in the world;—so I was very glad to give her five guineas to take her down to Exeter, where she thinks of staying three or four weeks with Mrs. Burgess, in hopes, as I tell her, to fall in with the Doctor again.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

It chanced, however, that the mayor and corporation waited upon him with an address of thanks for his good intentions towards the town, and that the burgesses, having ordered new coats from London for the occasion, were all arrayed in velvet collars, which so preyed upon my uncle’s spirits that he took to his bed, and never showed his face in public again.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)