Definitions

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

  • noun A hole or tunnel dug in the ground by a small animal, such as a rabbit or mole, for habitation or refuge.
  • noun A narrow or snug place.
  • intransitive verb To dig a hole or tunnel for habitation or refuge.
  • intransitive verb To live or hide in such a place.
  • intransitive verb To move or progress by or as if by digging or tunneling.
  • intransitive verb To make by or as if by tunneling.
  • intransitive verb To dig a hole or tunnel in or through.
  • intransitive verb Archaic To hide in or as if in a burrow.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete spelling of borough.
  • noun A barrow; a mound. Sir T. Browne. See barrow.
  • noun In mining, the heap of refuse rock at the mouth of a shaft, or entrance of an adit-level or tunnel.
  • noun A hole in the ground excavated by an animal, as a rabbit or a marmot, as a refuge and habitation.
  • noun [Perhaps in ref. to the usually circular shape of mounds; cf. the equiv. Sc. brough, otherwise referred to burrow = borough = brough, q. v. In mod. English dial. abbr. burr.] A circle. Compare bur, burr, 2.
  • To make a hole or burrow to lodge in, as in the earth; work a way into or under something.
  • To lodge in a burrow; in a more general sense, to lodge in any deep or concealed place; hide.
  • To perforate with a burrow or as with burrows.
  • noun A variant of borrow.

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

  • intransitive verb To excavate a hole to lodge in, as in the earth; to lodge in a hole excavated in the earth, as conies or rabbits.
  • intransitive verb To lodge, or take refuge, in any deep or concealed place; to hide.
  • intransitive verb (Zoöl.) a small owl of the western part of North America (Speotyto cunicularia), which lives in holes, often in company with the prairie dog.
  • noun An incorporated town. See 1st borough.
  • noun A shelter; esp. a hole in the ground made by certain animals, as rabbits, for shelter and habitation.
  • noun (Mining) A heap or heaps of rubbish or refuse.
  • noun A mound. See 3d Barrow, and Camp, n., 5.

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

  • noun A tunnel or hole, often as dug by a small creature.
  • verb To dig a tunnel or hole.

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

  • verb move through by or as by digging
  • noun a hole made by an animal, usually for shelter

Etymologies

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

[Middle English borow.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin Unknown. Formally, it appears to be a variant of borough, but this sense is not known in Old English burh or in any Germanic cognate languages.

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Examples

  • Saw the video a while back….anyone else notice how he called the burrow a “farm”.

    EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Minority Report Interface: How would you use it? 2006

  • Anyone with an actual brain can focus on the importance of the real story and won't appreciate the D&C look that up if you don't know what it is the producers did to JKR with this movie, because that's exactly what they did. lividfans the weslays house being called the burrow is so stupid it is pointless why not just call it there house eric114

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - What Did You Think? | /Film 2009

  • It could hardly be described as a burrow, for, at intervals, it was half choked with earth-falls, and he had to work his way through them.

    "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" Studies of Animal life and Character Douglas English

  • This was a family of bunny rabbits, and they lived in a nice hole, which was called a burrow, and which they had dug under ground in a big park on the top of a mountain, back of Orange.

    Sammie and Susie Littletail Howard Roger Garis 1917

  • The burrow, which is dug out by the bird, is about three inches in diameter and terminates in a larger chamber in which the eggs are laid.

    A Bird Calendar for Northern India Douglas Dewar 1916

  • SAMMIE and Susie Littletail, the rabbits of whom I told you in the book just before this, lived in an underground house called a burrow, but Johnnie and Billie Bushytail had their home in a nest on a tall tree.

    Johnnie and Billie Bushytail 1910

  • "The rest of the burrow is the same, Mr. Ritchie, until it comes to the light again."

    The Crossing Winston Churchill 1909

  • "The rest of the burrow is the same, Mr. Ritchie, until it comes to the light again."

    Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill Winston Churchill 1909

  • "The rest of the burrow is the same, Mr. Ritchie, until it comes to the light again."

    The Crossing 1904

  • Their burrow was a very roomy and comfortable one, but it was spoiled for them by the presence of those two moon-eyed, hook-beaked, solemn persons sitting side by side in the opposite corner.

    Children of the Wild Charles George Douglas Roberts 1901

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