Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A steel cutting tool with a sharp beveled point, used in engraving or carving stone.
  • noun A stone tool with a chisellike head.
  • noun The style or technique of an engraver's work.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An engravers' tool of tempered steel, with a lozenge-shaped point, fixed in a handle the end of which, held in the hand, is rounded at the top; a graver.
  • noun The manner or style of execution of an engraver: as, a soft burin; a brilliant burin.
  • noun A steel graver used by marble-workers. Also spelled burine.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The cutting tool of an engraver on metal, used in line engraving. It is made of tempered steel, one end being ground off obliquely so as to produce a sharp point, and the other end inserted in a handle; a graver; also, the similarly shaped tool used by workers in marble.
  • noun The manner or style of execution of an engraver.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A chisel with a sharp point, used for engraving; a graver.
  • noun A prehistoric flint tool.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a chisel of tempered steel with a sharp point; used for engraving

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, probably from obsolete Italian burino, of Germanic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French

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Examples

Comments

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  • "This incision in his olfactory tract producing a naso-dilation, Cochin profits from it by quickly scarifying Vowl's partition with a surgical pin, scraping it with a burin. . ." Gilbert Adair translation of Georges Perec's La Disparition

    August 11, 2010

  • I like this definition from the Century: "The manner or style of execution of an engraver: as, a soft burin; a brilliant burin."

    March 14, 2016