Library / English Dictionary

BURROW

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A hole made by an animal, usually for shelter

Synonyms:

burrow; tunnel

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("burrow" is a kind of...):

hole; hollow (a depression hollowed out of solid matter)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "burrow"):

rabbit warren; warren (a series of connected underground tunnels occupied by rabbits)

Derivation:

burrow (move through by or as by digging)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Move through by or as by digging

Example:

burrow through the forest

Synonyms:

burrow; tunnel

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "burrow" is one way to...):

cut into; delve; dig; turn over (turn up, loosen, or remove earth)

Sentence frame:

Something is ----ing PP

Derivation:

burrow (a hole made by an animal, usually for shelter)

Credits

 Context examples: 

All this I shall some day write at fuller length, and amidst these more stirring days I would tenderly sketch in these lovely summer evenings, when with the deep blue sky above us we lay in good comradeship among the long grasses by the wood and marveled at the strange fowl that swept over us and the quaint new creatures which crept from their burrows to watch us, while above us the boughs of the bushes were heavy with luscious fruit, and below us strange and lovely flowers peeped at us from among the herbage; or those long moonlit nights when we lay out upon the shimmering surface of the great lake and watched with wonder and awe the huge circles rippling out from the sudden splash of some fantastic monster; or the greenish gleam, far down in the deep water, of some strange creature upon the confines of darkness.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of the Royal Sovereign, he observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I: and yet, says he, I dare engage these creatures have their titles and distinctions of honour; they contrive little nests and burrows, that they call houses and cities; they make a figure in dress and equipage; they love, they fight, they dispute, they cheat, they betray!

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

They found that starved worms exposed to a magnetic field that was oriented opposite to the local Earth’s magnetic field reversed their burrowing behavior; they migrated up, suggesting they sensed magnetic fields.

(Magnetic Field Sensor Unearthed in Worms, NIH)

They spoke of those hours of burrowing.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Instead, and after a wistful, searching look, he snuggled in, burrowing his head out of sight between the master's arm and body.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Eat a good breakfast, Watson, for I propose to get upon Dr. Armstrong’s trail to-day, and once on it I will not stop for rest or food until I run him to his burrow.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So acute did his hunger become at times that he was not above rooting out wood-mice from their burrows in the ground.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

At night, when the god returned home, White Fang would leave the warm sleeping-place he had burrowed in the snow in order to receive the friendly snap of fingers and the word of greeting.

(White Fang, by Jack London)