burgess

From Middle English burgeis,^[1] from Anglo-Norman burgeis, of Proto-Germanic origin; either from Late Latin burgensis (from Latin burgus), or from Frankish *burg, both from Proto-Germanic *burgz (“stronghold, city”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ-.^[2] See also bourgeois, burgish.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɜːd͡ʒɪs/

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burgess (plural burgesses)

1. An inhabitant of a borough with full rights; a citizen.
   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

     In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. In this way all respectable burgesses, down to fifty years ago, spent their evenings.

   • 1907, Antiquities of Sunderland and Its Vicinity - Volumes 5-7, page 73:

     If any burgess be appealed of a plea whereon wager of battle may issue by a villein or outdweller , let him defend himself by oath, that is to say by the 36 men, unless he is challenged in respect of a crime that the law requires him to defend by battle, in no case ought a burgess to fight against a villein if he have challenged him unless before the dispute he shall have quitted the burgage.

2. (historical) A town magistrate.
3. (historical, UK) A representative of a borough in the Parliament.
4. (historical, US) A member of the House of Burgesses, a legislative body in colonial America, established by the Virginia Company to provide civil rule in the colonies.