Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To suppress or extinguish quietly; stifle: burked the investigation by failing to reappoint the commission.
- v. To avoid; disregard: "To make The Tempest a tragic and depressing play he was willing to burke all the elements that made it the exact opposite” ( Robert M. Adams).
- v. To execute (someone) by suffocation so as to leave the body intact and suitable for dissection.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To murder by suffocation in order to sell the body for dissection. This method was selected because it left no marks of violence upon the victims.
- Figuratively, to smother; shelve; get rid of by some indirect manœuver: as, to burke a parliamentary question.
Wiktionary
- v. To murder by suffocation, or so as to produce few marks of violence, for the purpose of obtaining a body to be sold for dissection.
- v. To smother; to conceal, hush up, suppress.
- n. UK, slang Variant spelling of berk.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To murder by suffocation, or so as to produce few marks of violence, for the purpose of obtaining a body to be sold for dissection.
- v. To dispose of quietly or indirectly; to suppress; to smother; to shelve.
WordNet 3.0
- n. British statesman famous for his oratory; pleaded the cause of the American colonists in British Parliament and defended the parliamentary system (1729-1797)
- v. murder without leaving a trace on the body
- n. United States frontierswoman and legendary figure of the Wild West noted for her marksmanship (1852-1903)
- v. get rid of, silence, or suppress
Etymologies
- Eponym, from William Burke. (Wiktionary)
- After William Burke (1792-1829), Irish-born grave robber and murderer. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
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“Spydr331: nope i dont think i have, burke and white plains? ill have to look into it”
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“Yeah, like the cyclists that commented on the pedestrians death on the burke gilman trail.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘burke’.
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250 More Spelling Words
More words for intermediate and advanced spellers.
erethism, risus, zendik, agiotage, sciolism, fusain, mbaqanga, empyrean, chary, sialogogue, zingiber, kachina and 238 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - b
List of words from phrontistery.info
bywoner, byssus, byssiferous, byssaceous, byrnie, butyric, butyraceous, buttery, buteonine, bunting, burdet, broma and 582 more...
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.names
remy, rolf, theobald, jerrick, dray, theade, torfin, roderick, eleazer, keller, leif, melrick and 149 more...
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Words to Try to Use in Colloquial Spe...
surquedry, equivocate, putative, turgid, congeries, irrefragable, quiddity, zaftig, flagitious, bloviate, perfidy, compendious and 227 more...
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Consider the Lobster
By David Foster Wallace
percussive, discursive, lugubrious, docent, assiduously, berm, wag, bonmot, imbroglio, telegraph, fissile, rube and 220 more...
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To Learn
Words to learn via rote repetition.
atechnic, veridical, abjure, recrudescence, acquisitiveness, adipocere, alembic, adventitious, aliment, alimentiveness, amativeness, anterior and 111 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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The Confidence Man
Words to remember from Melville's "The Confidence Man"
chevalier, hawk, unalloyed, ex-officio, scruple, pertinacity, epithet, gilt, bedizen, embrasure, escritoire, squaw and 278 more...
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.pages
tamerlane, rickett, bastan, barnum, byssus, carys, lyris, vidler, morphos, leafwing, phaon, scudder and 238 more...
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Extinguishish
A list of managed departures.
jettison, demolition, clearance, chucking, disposal, defenestration, remove, exile, excommunicate, eradicate, banish, deport and 114 more...
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Depraved and Insulting English
Vocabulary from Peter Novobatzky's and Ammon Shea's highly entertaining book of words I wish I could use in conversation.
ablutophobic, aboiement, abydocomist, acalculiac, achilous, acokoinonia, acrocephalic, acrotophiliac, acrotomophiliac, ameliotist, apotemnophiliac, monopediomaniac and 349 more...
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List
ullage, apotropaic, revenant, chiaroscuro, ablution, mercurial, quixotic, chicanery, convolute, verisimilitude, halcyon, miasma and 27 more...
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twwilliams's Words
balletomane, abecedarian, caravansary, saturnalia, niveous, prolegomenon, jackanapes, frisson, raddled, esurient, muliebrity, aperient and 18 more...
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ramulose's Words
ambo, burke, squink, diaphoresis, castellated, crenellated, tawdry, erumpent, plangent, furfuraceous, lipophobic, autarky and 9 more...
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what's in a name
unusual eponyms
chinchona, dolly varden, dundrearies, mazarine, namby-pamby, solander, syringe, pander, orrery, bishop, burke, phryne and 16 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for burke.

erose i've also seen it defined as "to smother people in order to sell their bodies for dissection." So called after William Burke, who was tried and executed for that very thing. Jul 1, 2009
yarb Citation on burk. May 20, 2008
sionnach to murder without leaving a trace on the body Nov 5, 2007