716: burg, borough, borrow, and bury Nov 23, 2016

It isn’t usually too surprising when words that connote similar ideas, such as 'borough' and 'burgh' turn out to be related. In this case, both of them date back to the Old English 'burg' meaning 'city' especially a walled fortress, but more surprisingly the verb 'borrow', though not 'burrow', is also related. The Old English derivative for that term originally meant 'to preserve' giving us the connection to burgs, but also the verb 'bury'. For more on this, see the post on 'burg'.