burgher
Pluralburghers
- 1A prosperous, middle-class member of a community, often carrying overtones of comfortable complacency or smug respectability.
The town's burghers prided themselves on tidy gardens and full pantries, untroubled by the poverty beyond their walls.
He had settled into life as a contented burgher, more concerned with his wine cellar than with the world's troubles.
Note
Taken out of the medieval town, the word became a gently mocking label for the comfortable middle class. It usually carries irony rather than respect. Calling someone a burgher suggests settled prosperity, conformity and a measure of self-satisfaction, an image much used in cultural and literary criticism. Its close neighbor is bourgeois, and it suits writing about civic worthies who are pleased with themselves.
- 2A citizen of a medieval city, especially one belonging to the established town class with recognized civic standing.
As a sworn burgher, he could carry arms within the city and answer only to its own courts.
The burghers of the old town elected their magistrates and held the keys to the city gates.
Similarcitizen, burgess, freeman, townsman
Note
Here the stress falls on standing, not trade. To be a burgher was to hold full membership of a chartered town, with trading privileges and a share in civic self-government. In this sense a burgher need not belong to the merchant class. What counted was citizenship of the burgh the word is built on, a legal status rather than an occupation.
- 3A member of the merchant class of medieval towns, whose wealth and influence came from trade rather than land.
A shrewd burgher, he turned a single market stall into a trading house spanning three countries.
The burghers financed the cathedral, their fortunes built on wool and credit.
Similarmerchant, trader, tradesman
Note
The word begins with a fortress. Old High German burgāri meant "inhabitant of a fortress," and English formed its own burgh + -er ("inhabitant of"), later reinforced by Middle Dutch burgher. As walled settlements grew into trading towns, the town's inhabitant came to mean its merchant. Used of the medieval world, the word names a class defined by commerce, set apart from those whose standing came from land.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English 'burger', equivalent to 'burgh' plus the suffix '-er' meaning 'inhabitant of'. It was likely merged with and reinforced by Middle Dutch 'burgher' and Middle High German 'burger', which trace back to Old High German 'burgāri' ('inhabitant of a fortress'), a derivative of 'burg' ('fortress, citadel'), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- ('fortified elevation').