Meanings
- UKnot comparableRelating to a burgh or borough.
It is true that Frome is not called a borough, nor are burgesses recorded for it, but the payment of the ‘third penny’ suggests burghal status […]
1986, H. C. Darby, chapter 10, in Domesday England, Cambridge University Press, page 2902 more examples
In Scotland, parishes are either burghal, i.e. those comprised wholly within a burgh royal; landward, those forming a rural district; or mixed, i.e. a burgh with a rural district attached.
1867, John Guthrie Smith, A Digest of the Law of Scotland Relating to the Poor, the Public Health, and Other Matters Managed by Parochial Boards, 2nd edition, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, Introduction, p. 2There is a pleasant smell of cooking about, and a hum of compact and contented life. Add the excitement of an election, and you have that busy burghal hive which is the basis of all human society—a snug little commune intent on its own affairs, a world which for the moment owes allegiance to no other.
1930 July, John Buchan, “Portaway—Red Davie”, in Castle Gay, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, →OCLC, page 202
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Cite this entry
burghal. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/burghal
“burghal.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/burghal. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “burghal,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/burghal.
Source: burghal on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.