▪ I. † burel1 Obs. exc. Hist.
Forms: ? 3, 4–5 borel, 4–7 burel, 5 borelle, burell, 6–7 burrell, 8 burail.
[a. OF. burel (now bureau), a kind of cloth, dim. of bure, fem. ‘coarse (? brown) woollen cloth, bay, baize’, of uncertain origin, referred by Diez, Littré, and others to an adj. which appears in OF. as buire ‘dark brown’:—late L. *burreus, *burrius, f. L. burrus red, commonly taken as ad. Gr. πυῤῥός red. Cognate words to F. bure, buire, are Lomb. bur, It. bujo dark; to burel, Sp. buriel, Pr. burel, red-brown; also Sp. buriel, Pg., Pr. burel, coarse woollen cloth. See bureau.]
A coarse woollen cloth (prob. originally of brown colour: cf. baize); frieze; a garment of this fabric; (plain) clothing.
| c 1300 K. Alis. 5475 The kyng..dooth on a borel of a squyer. c 1300 Pol. Songs 221 In a curtel of burel. c 1386 Chaucer Wife's Prol. 356 If I be gay sire shrewe, I wol renne out, my borel [in 6 MSS., Petw. burel] for to shewe. 1483 Caxton G. de la Tour E ij, Of the valewe of one of her gownes .I. poure peple had had .I. ellys of burell or fryse. 1600 Queen's Wardr. in Nichols Progr. Q. Eliz. III. 511 Item, towe remnants of blacke burrell, conteyninge both together 12 yeardes. 1720 Stow's Surv. (ed. Strype 1754) I. iii. v. 579/1 Burels, or Cloth-listed, according to the Constitution made for Breadth of cloth. Ibid. II. v. x. 286/2 Cloth ought to have been two Ells wide from List to List which was called Burrells. [1876 Rock Text. Fabr. vi. 65.] |
b. attrib.
| a 1400 Eng. Gilds 351 Non ne shal make burelle werk, but ȝif he be of þe ffraunchyse of the town. |
▪ II. † ˈburel2 Obs. rare—1.
A spoke of a wheel.
| c 1325 Gloss W. de Biblesw. in Wright Voc. 167 Mes les rays [bureles] de la charette En les moyaus [in the nawes] untreceyte. |
▪ III. burel(l
var. of borrel a. Obs. lay, rude.