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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

Lenore, the heroine of a celebrated ballad by Bürger, the German lyric poet, a maiden whose lover dies and whose spectre appears to her on horseback and carries her off mounted behind him.

From The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by Nuttall, P. Austin

Eight Songs: words by Claudius, Sophie von Mereau, Bürger, Goethe, and Lessing; partly composed in Bonn before 1792.

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

The analogy between the English and German allows a complete transfusion of the originality of style and versification of Bürger.

From A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

Wordsworth adds that he esteems the genius of Dr. Percy in this kind of writing superior to that of any other modern writer; and that even Bürger had not Percy's fine sensibility.

From A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

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 Francke, Kuno