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• burger
  burger

  noun

  a hamburger.
• Burger
  Burger

  noun

  Warren Earl, 1907–1995, U.S. jurist: chief justice of the U.S. 1969–86.
• -burger
  -burger

  a combining form extracted from hamburger, occurring in compounds the initial element of which denotes a special garnish for a hamburger or a substitute ingredient for the meat patty.
• Bürger
  Bürger

  noun

  Gottfried August (ˈɡɔtfriːt ˈauɡʊst). 1747–94, German lyric poet, noted particularly for his ballad Lenore (1773)

burger

¹ American  

[bur-ger] / ˈbɜr gər /

noun

• burgers
  plural

1. a hamburger.

2. a food patty, or patty on a bun, containing ingredients other than beef.

   veggie or turkey burgers.

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Burger ² American  

[bur-ger] / ˈbɜr gər /

noun

1. Warren Earl, 1907–1995, U.S. jurist: chief justice of the U.S. 1969–86.

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-burger ³ American  

1. a combining form extracted from hamburger, occurring in compounds the initial element of which denotes a special garnish for a hamburger or a substitute ingredient for the meat patty.

   baconburger; cheeseburger; fishburger.

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burger ¹ British  

/ ˈbɜːɡə /

noun

1. informal

   1. short for hamburger

   2. ( in combination )

      a cheeseburger

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Bürger ² British  

/ ˈbyrɡər /

noun

1. Gottfried August (ˈɡɔtfriːt ˈauɡʊst). 1747–94, German lyric poet, noted particularly for his ballad Lenore (1773)

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Usage

What does -burger mean? The combining form -burger is used like a suffix indicating a kind of hamburger or other patty in a sandwich bun. The form -burger comes from the end of the word hamburger, meaning "a sandwich consisting of a cooked patty of ground beef in a roll or bun." The word hamburger itself comes from a shortening of a dish named Hamburger steak, from the German city of Hamburg.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• burgers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of burger

1935–40, extracted from hamburger by false analysis as ham ¹ + burger

Explanation

A grilled beef patty on a bun is called a burger. Lunch at a fast food restaurant often consists of a burger and fries. You can use the word burger as a casual shorthand for hamburger, which is ground or minced beef that's fried and served on a bun. A burger can also be made of other ingredients, like turkey or tofu or lamb. In fact, if you shape food into a patty, grill it, and put it on a roll or bun, you can call it a burger. The word was first used in 1939, from hamburger.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

burger Burger -burger Bürger burgers

Menu offerings include appetizers such as Dungeness crab cakes and lobster corn dogs, and entrées such as crispy chicken Milanese, honey miso glazed salmon and a signature Skywalker Ranch Wagyu burger.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026

But today, as the burger chain’s new CEO tries to reverse more than a year of weaker sales trends, a new approach may be needed.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 8, 2026

The burger wars are back, with the latest salvo coming from Burger King.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

Company president said the revamped burger was helping win market share; McDonald’s recently overhauled the Big Mac.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

And it really was the best burger I’d ever tasted.

From "Hope Springs" by Jaime Berry

The burger wars are back, with the latest salvo coming from Burger King.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

Burger King executives said Thursday that work to revamp its signature Whopper burger earlier this year helped deliver an 8.5% increase in domestic U.S. same-store sales for the three months ended June 30.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

Burger King’s U.S. same-store sales rose 8.5% for the three months ended June 30, helped by a revamp of its signature Whopper burger.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

Arguments that Burger and Bork dismissed as fringe advocacy became orthodox within conservative legal circles.

From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2026

"George is planning to leave New York City for a couple of days in order to make some important contacts," Burger said.

From Nazi Saboteurs by Samantha Seiple

The suffix -burger is loaned from hamburger to form cheeseburger or veggie burger - even though a hamburger refers to its origins in Hamburg, Germany, not to a burger made from ham.

From BBC ● May 11, 2013

There is no mystery in them, no resort to verbal tricks such as Bürger had employed in Lenore.

From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03 Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes by Kuno Francke

Bürger which contrasts the naked rights of labor with the historic rights of rank in so sharp a fashion that, if it should be published today, it would undoubtedly be confiscated as communist literature.

From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08 Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes by Various

French and Italian he seems to have been acquainted with so far as he deemed it necessary; but his principal literary studies were confined to Lessing, Bürger, Wieland, and Klopstock.

From Beethoven: A Memoir (2nd Ed.) by Elliott Graeme

Among these were versions of the Erl König of Goethe, and the Lenore and The Wild Huntsman of Bürger, which appeared in 1796.

From English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction by Henry Coppee

Then, more lately, what songs have not Bürger and Voss composed!

From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 02 Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes by Kuno Francke

Their first post captured Ararat El-Rawi, bursting with energy as he served them a multicourse meal including tabbouleh, lamb burgers, spinach pie, baklava and endless wine.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

More Americans were expected to spurn pricier steaks and burgers in favor of cheaper chicken.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

Food trucks and bars were scattered throughout, serving up tacos, burgers, hot dogs and other hand-held bites.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026

They will make many meat products, including burgers destined for barbecues.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

“Or we could have moose burgers or moose meatloaf...or moose meatballs.”

From "I Survived the Great Alaska Earthquake, 1964" by Lauren Tarshis