burly

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

• adjective Heavy, strong, and muscular; husky. synonym: muscular.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To make burly; cause to bulge out.
• Great in bodily size; bulky; large; stout: formerly used of things, but now only of persons, and implying some degree of coarseness.
• Boisterous; loud.
• Synonyms Massive, Ponderous, etc. See bulky.
• Having burls or excrescent knots: as, a burly tree.

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

• adjective Having a large, strong, or gross body; stout; lusty; -- now used chiefly of human beings, but formerly of animals, in the sense of stately or beautiful, and of inanimate things that were huge and bulky.
• adjective Coarse and rough; boisterous.

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

• adjective Large, well-built, and muscular.
• adjective slang Originating from the east end of London, England. An expressive term to mean something is good, awesome, amazing, unbelievable. e.g That goal was burly, or Räikkönen is a burly Formula 1 driver.
• adjective slang Originating from surfer culture and/or Southern California. An expressive term to mean something is of large magnitude, either good or bad, and sometimes both. e.g. "That wave was burly!" (meaning it was large, dangerous and difficult to ride). "This hike is going to be burly, but worth it because there is good body surfing at that beach." (meaning the hike is going to be hard work).

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

• adjective muscular and heavily built