BURLY

beefy, burly, husky, strapping, buirdly

(adjective) muscular and heavily built; “a beefy wrestler”; “had a tall burly frame”; “clothing sizes for husky boys”; “a strapping boy of eighteen”; “‘buirdly’ is a Scottish term”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology 1

Adjective

burly (comparative burlier, superlative burliest)

(usually, of a man) Large, well-built, and muscular.

(Britain, East End of London, slang) Great, amazing, unbelievable.

(US, slang, surf culture and/or Southern California) Of large magnitude, either good or bad, and sometimes both.

Etymology 2

Adjective

burly (comparative more burly, superlative most burly)

Full of burls or knots; knotty.

Source: Wiktionary


Bur"ly, a. Etym: [OE. burlich strong, excellent; perh. orig. fit for a lady's bower, hence handsome, manly, stout. Cf. Bower.]

1. 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. "Burly sacks." Drayton. In his latter days, with overliberal diet, [he was] somewhat corpulent and burly. Sir T. More. Burly and big, and studious of his ease. Cowper.

2. Coarse and rough; boisterous. It was the orator's own burly way of nonsense. Cowley.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

6 May 2025

HEEDLESS

(adjective) marked by or paying little heed or attention; “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics”--Franklin D. Roosevelt; “heedless of danger”; “heedless of the child’s crying”


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Coffee Trivia

According to Guinness World Records, the largest coffee shop is the Al Masaa Café, which has 1,050 seats. The coffee shop was inaugurated in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 13 August 2014.

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