The story
- Old English · inherited frombyrde
- Middle English · inherited fromberde“woman, lady, young lady”
- English todayburd
From Middle English berde (“woman, lady, young lady”), possibly from Old English byrde, ġebyrde (“of noble birth”), from byrd, ġebyrd (“birth”), or from an unattested *byrde (“embroideress”). Possibly the origin of the English slang bird for a young woman.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.