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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bourdon.

The burden or bass of a melody.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbʊədən/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɔːdən/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊɹdən/General-American/ˈbɔɹdən/General-American
  1. The burden or bass of a melody.

    archaic
  2. The drone pipe of a bagpipe.

  3. The lowest-pitched stop of an organ.

  4. The lowest-pitched bell of a carillon.

  5. A large, low-pitched bell not part of a diatonically tuned ring of bells.

  6. A bumblebee, genus Bombus.

Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English burdoun (“accompaniment”), from Old French bordon, from Medieval Latin burdō, burdōnem (“drone”), probably from Frankish *buʀdō (“grub, beetle, cricket, bumblebee”), related to Old English budda (“beetle”), Saterland Frisian Budde (“worm or grub used as fishbait”), Icelandic budda (“purse”). The modern pronunciation and form (for *burdon) is influenced by modern French bourdon.

noun/ˈbʊədən/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɔːdən/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊɹdən/General-American/ˈbɔɹdən/General-American
  1. a pilgrim's staff.

    historical
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English burdoun (“pilgrim's staff”), from Old French bordon, from Medieval Latin burdō, burdōnem (“pilgrim's staff”). The modern pronunciation and form is also influenced by modern French bourdon.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.