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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1941 (SND Vol. II). Includes material from the 1976 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Quotation dates: 1707-1730, 1785, 1876

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†BURSE, n. Also burs. A bursary; a scholarship. [bʌrs]Sc. 1730 T. Boston Memoirs III. 20: 
I exhausted what remained of my burse, which was in all £80 Scots, in fitting out myself.Sc. 1785 Boswell Tour to Hebrides (1936) 283:
He then went to Aberdeen, where he gained a burse in King's College, upon a competition.Abd. 1876 J. Grant Burgh Schools Scot. ii. v.:
In 1779 the Council [of Aberdeen] enacted that no boy who has . . . competed for a "burse," shall receive premium.Gall. 1707 Session Bk. Minnigaff (1939) 231: 
The Session appoints the deacons to pay the burs to the minister upon demand.

[O.Sc. burse, burs, burce, (1) a purse, 1512, (2) a sum or endowment for the support of a student or scholar (or the payment of a teacher), a bursary, 1579 (D.O.S.T.). "With the establishment of colleges (which were at first boarding houses rather than places of teaching) came the Fr. bourse, boursier. The Sc. forms burse, bursar, suggest our close contact with the French academic vocabulary at a period when England had severed the contact. Sc. burse, obs. since the 18th cent., often carried the notion of free maintenance; bursary, the only form now in use, carries only the notion of a money payment" (Abd.16 1937).]

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"Burse n.". Dictionary of the Scots Language. 2004. Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd. Accessed 16 Dec 2025 <http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/burse>

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