Word of the Day Archive
Saturday January 28, 2012
birr \bur\
, noun:
1. Force; energy; vigor.
2. Emphasis in statement, speech, etc.
3. A whirring sound.
verb:
1. To move with or make a whirring sound.
She pursed her lips and, expertly, imitated the red-winged blackbird's call: not the liquid piping of the wood thrush, which dipped down into the dry tcch tchh tchh of the cricket's birr and up again in delirious, sobbing trills…
-- Donna Tartt, The Little Friend: A Novel
I turn to the woman. There's a wheezing birr coming from her own bleached-out face.
-- Irvine Welsh, Filth
Birr is derived from the Icelandic word byrr meaning "favorable wind."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for birr