Etymology: Found in Anglo-Norman French in 16th cent.: < Anglo-Latin burglator (13th cent.), burgulator (16th cent.), altered form of burgator (13th cent.), perhaps < the first element of burgh-breche , the native English term for burglary. The Anglo-Latin verb burgulare (quasi ‘to burgle’) is recorded in 1354 ( Assis. 27 Edw. III, quoted in Reeves Hist. Eng. Law ed. Finlason II. 419). The 13th cent. Anglo-Norman word for ‘burglar’, burgesour , burgeysour , is of obscure formation, but of the same ultimate origin. The related burglary n.¹ is in legal Anglo-Norman burglarie, in Anglo-Latin burgaria, burgeria (early 13th cent.), for which burglaria is found in 16th cent. The origin of the intrusive l, in burglator, burglaria, and the corresponding English forms, is not clear; but the notion of Lambarde (1581) and later writers that the ending -lar represents Anglo-Norman ler-s, laroun ( < Latin ˈlatro, laˈtrōnem) thief, is contrary to the evidence. A ‘burglator’ or ‘burgesour’ was not necessarily a ‘latro’; his object might be something else than plunder. No corresponding words are known in continental Old French or medieval Latin; the rare Old French burger ‘saccager, piller’ (Godefroy), occurring in Garnier's Vie de Saint Thomas, is unconnected, unless perhaps this sense of the word may be due to Anglo-Norman influence.

Etymology: < burglar n.