burse

See also: Burse, bürşe, and bursë

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French bourse, from Old French borse, from Latin bursa, from Ancient Greek βύρσα (búrsa). Doublet of purse, compare French bourse (“purse, fund”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɜː(ɹ)s/

Noun

burse (plural burses)

1. (now chiefly historical) A purse.
   • 1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter IX, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 90:

     Roche stepped forward with a leather burse, announcing that he would pay for both of us.

   • 2021 January 22, The Guardian:

     Try a burse instead – sort of a bag, sort of a purse, inspired by the cases that hold the corporal cloth used in mass, and designed to be carried by men.

2. A fund or foundation for the maintenance of the needy scholars in their studies.
3. (ecclesiastical) An ornamental case to hold the corporal when not in use.
4. (obsolete) A stock exchange; a bourse.
5. (obsolete) A kind of bazaar.

Derived terms

• disburse
• imburse

 

References

• “burse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• rebus, erubs, Bures, Ubers, Suber, resub, Ruebs, urbes, bures, rubes, Reubs, suber, buers

Old English

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin bursa

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbur.se/, [ˈburˠ.ze]

Noun

burse f

1. bag, pouch

Declension

Declension of burse (weak)

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	burse	bursan
accusative	bursan	bursan
genitive	bursan	bursena
dative	bursan	bursum

References

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “burse”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[1], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.