burly

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: bur=ly

CIDE DICTIONARY

burly, a. [OE. burlich strong, excellent; perh. orig. fit for a lady's bower, hence handsome, manly, stout. Cf. Bower.].

•  Having a large, strong, or gross body; stout; lusty; -- now used chiefly of human beings, but formerly of animals, in the sense of stately or beautiful, and of inanimate things that were huge and bulky.  Drayton.  [1913 Webster]

  "In his latter days, with overliberal diet, [he was] somewhat corpulent and burly."  [1913 Webster]

  "Burly and big, and studious of his ease."  [1913 Webster]
•  Coarse and rough; boisterous.  [1913 Webster]

  "It was the orator's own burly way of nonsense."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

burly, adj. (burlier, burliest) of stout sturdy build; big and strong.

Derivative

burliness n.

Etymology

ME borli prob. f. an OE form = 'fit for the bower' (BOWER(1))

THESAURUS

burly

able-bodied, adipose, athletic, beefy, big, big-bellied, bloated, blowzy, bosomy, brawny, broad-shouldered, buxom, chubby, chunky, corpulent, distended, dumpy, fat, fattish, fleshy, full, gross, heavy, heavyset, hefty, hippy, husky, imposing, large, lusty, meaty, muscle-bound, muscular, obese, overweight, paunchy, plump, podgy, portly, potbellied, pudgy, puffy, pursy, roly-poly, rotund, rugged, sinewy, square, squat, squatty, stalwart, stocky, stout, strapping, strong, sturdy, swollen, thewy, thick-bodied, thickset, top-heavy, tough, tubby, well-built, well-fed, well-knit, well-set, well-set-up, wiry

ROGET THESAURUS

burly

Size

N size, magnitude, dimension, bulk, volume, largeness, greatness, expanse, amplitude, mass, proportions, capacity, tonnage, tunnage, cordage, caliber, scantling, turgidity, corpulence, obesity, plumpness, embonpoint, corporation, flesh and blood, lustihood, hugeness, enormity, immensity, monstrosity, giant, Brobdingnagian, Antaeus, Goliath, Gog and Magog, Gargantua, monster, mammoth, Cyclops, cachalot, whale, porpoise, behemoth, leviathan, elephant, hippopotamus, colossus, tun, cord, lump, bulk, block, loaf, mass, swad, clod, nugget, bushel, thumper, whooper, spanker, strapper, Triton among the minnows, mountain, mound, heap, largest portion, full size, life size, large, big, great, considerable, bulky, voluminous, ample, massive, massy, capacious, comprehensive, spacious, mighty, towering, fine, magnificent, corpulent, stout, fat, obese, plump, squab, full, lusty, strapping, bouncing, portly, burly, well-fed, full-grown, corn fed, gram fed, stalwart, brawny, fleshy, goodly, in good case, in good condition, in condition, chopping, jolly, chub faced, chubby faced, lubberly, hulky, unwieldy, lumpish, gaunt, spanking, whacking, whopping, walloping, thumping, thundering, hulking, overgrown, puffy, huge, immense, enormous, mighty, vast, vasty, amplitudinous, stupendous, monster, monstrous, humongous, monumental, elephantine, jumbo, mammoth, gigantic, gigantean, giant, giant like, titanic, prodigious, colossal, Cyclopean, Brobdingnagian, Bunyanesque, Herculean, Gargantuan, infinite, large as life, plump as a dumpling, plump as a partridge, fat as a pig, fat as a quail, fat as butter, fat as brawn, fat as bacon, immeasurable, unfathomable, unplumbed, inconceivable, unimaginable, unheard-of, of cosmic proportions, of epic proportions, the mother of all, teh granddaddy of all.