Burrough, Borough, or Burgh, a corporation or town which is not a city. The word in its original signification meant a company consisting of ten families, which were bound together as each other's pledge. Afterwards borough came to signify a town having a wall or some inclosure round it; and all places that in old time had the name of borough, it is said, were fortified or fenced in some shape or other. Borough is a place of safety and privilege; and some are called free burghs, and the tradesmen in them freemen. Borough-English, a customary descent of lands or tenements, in some ancient boroughs and copy-hold manors, by which the youngest son, and not the eldest, succeeds to the burgage tenement on the death of his father. For which Littleton gives this reason; because the younger son, by reason of his tender age, is not so capable as the rest of his brethren to help himself. Other authors have indeed given a much stranger reason for this custom; as if the lord of the fee had anciently a right to break the seventh commandment with his tenant's wife on her wedding night; and that therefore the tenement descended, not to the eldest, but to the youngest son, who was more certainly the offspring of the tenant. But it cannot be proved that this custom ever prevailed in England, though it certainly did in Scotland, (under the name of merchetas, or marchetas), till abolished by Malcom III. But perhaps a more rational account than either may be brought from the practice of the Tartars; among whom, according to Father Duhalde, this custom of descent to the youngest son also prevails. That nation is composed totally of shepherds and herdsmen; and the elder sons, as soon as they are capable of leading a pastoral life, migrate from their father with a certain allotment of cattle, and go to seek a new habitation. The youngest son, therefore, who continues lately with his father, is naturally the heir of his house, the rest being already provided for. And thus we find, that among many other northern nations it was the custom for all the sons but one to migrate from the father, which one became his heir. So that possibly this custom, wherever it prevails, may be the remnant of that pastoral state of the ancient Britons and Germans which Cæsar and Tacitus describe.

Borough-head, or Head-borough, called also borough-holder, or bursholder, the chief man of the decenna, or hundred, chosen to speak and act in behalf of the rest.

Head-borough also signifies a kind of head constable, where there are several chosen as his assistants, to serve warrants, &c. See Constable.