Borough

A borough is a local government administrative subdivision used in the Canadian province of Quebec, in some states of the United States, and formerly in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom, boroughs are also to be found in England and Northern Ireland.

Etymology

The word borough has cognates in other Germanic languages. For example, burgh in Scots, burg in German, and borg in both Danish and Swedish; the equivalent word is also to be found in Frisian, Dutch, Norwegian, and Icelandic.

Related Topics:
Word - Cognates - Germanic languages - Scots - German - Danish - Swedish - Frisian - Dutch - Norwegian - Icelandic

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The English borough and the Scots burgh are derived from the Old English word burh (with dialectal variants including burg, beorh, beorg, and byrig). The Old English word was originally used for a fortified town, and was related to the verb beorgan (cf. Dutch and German bergen), meaning "to keep, save, make secure".

Related Topics:
English - Scots - Old English

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A number of other European languages have cognate words which were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in Welsh, bourg in French, borgo in Italian, and burgo in Spanish (hence the place-name Burgos).

Related Topics:
Europe - Middle Ages - Irish - Welsh - French - Italian - Spanish - Burgos

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Also related are the words bourgeois and belfry (both from the French), and burglar; more distantly, it is related to words meaning "hill" or "mountain" in a number of languages (cf. the second element of iceberg).

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