Burying

How to spell burying

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce burying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does burying mean?

1. verbPlacing something or someone into the ground and covering it over, or hiding something from view.

Burying in a sentence

• The gardener spent the afternoon burying tulip bulbs along the fence.

• The dog kept burying its favourite bone in the flower bed.

Where does burying come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb byrgan, which meant to hide something away or to lay a body in the ground, and which is related to beorgan, meaning to protect or shelter. The same protective sense survives in the word 'borough', a fortified or sheltered place, showing that the original idea was as much about concealment and safekeeping as about funerals. Over the medieval period the spelling drifted, and the modern form settled on 'bury' even though most English speakers pronounce it to rhyme with 'berry'. The present participle keeps the 'y' rather than changing it to 'i' (unlike 'buried'), so the word is built straightforwardly as bury plus -ing. That gap between the 'u' you write and the 'e' sound you say is exactly the trap that trips up confident adult spellers.

How the word is built

• bury (from Old English byrgan: to hide, inter)
• -ing (present participle suffix)