burly.
Large, well-built, and muscular.
Meaning & usage
Large, well-built, and muscular.
He’s a big, burly rugby player who works as a landscape gardener.
Great, amazing, unbelievable.
That goal was burly.
Kimi Räikkönen is a burly Formula 1 driver.
Of large magnitude, either good or bad, and sometimes both.
That wave was burly! (i.e. large, dangerous and difficult to ride)
This hike is going to be burly, but worth it because there is good body surfing at that beach.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English burly, burely, borly, burlich, borlich, borlic (“tall, stately”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Scots burely, burly (“rough, stout, sturdy, strong”). Perhaps from Old English *būrlīċ (“noble, stately”, literally “bowerly”), equivalent to bower + -ly; or from Old English *byrlīċ (“high, raised”), from byre (“raised area, mound”), cognate with Old High German burlīh, purlīh (“lofty, elevated, high, exalted”), related to Old High German burjan (“to raise, lift, push up”), English burgeon. However, Irish burla (“bundle, pack; burly person”) points to a different origin.
Full of burls or knots; knotty.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree English burl Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English burly From burl + -y.
Try it on your idea.
burly has 5 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
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.