Etymology

A PGmc i-stem *ƀuriz seems to lie behind OIcel byrr ‘wind strong enough to fill the sails, good breeze, favourable wind, wind (at sea)’ (cp. WFris bur ‘wind’, MLG bore-lōs ‘without fair wind’ and probably OE byre ?‘favourable motion of the sea/wind’). All authorities have derived this word from ON, assuming a semantic development from ‘strong (following) wind’ to ‘blow, onslaught’ etc.  Cf. OE byre, whose known sense(s) are not as straightforwardly associated with wind, but could also conceivably have contributed to ME bur (e.g. OE ambyre ‘favourable’ (in the phrase ‘ambyrne wind’ at Or 1 1.16.3) (see further Dance; and especially Korhammer's (2017) recent discussion on the meaning of the OE).

PGmc Ancestor

*ƀuriz

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

byrr ‘wind strong enough to fill the sails, good breeze, favourable wind, wind (at sea)’
(ONP byrr (sb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far byrur, Icel byr, Norw byr, Dan bør, Sw dial byr

OE Cognate

byre ?‘favourable motion of the sea/wind’

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

CC3c

Attestation

MED has a wide range of citations: the majority are N and E, and the word is esp. frequent in alliterative verse; but it is also found further afield by the later 14c., inc. several occurrences in WBible.  See further McGee 494 and Hug 386–7. Recorded in MnE Sc., Irel. and N. dial.

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 290, 374, 548, etc.; Pe 176, 1158; Cl 32; Pat 7, 148; WA 711

On the sense in Gaw see further Hug 1987: 387, and on the sense at Pe 1158, see EVG 1157-8n.

Bibliography

MED bir(e (n.1) , OED birr (n.) , HTOED , HTOED , EDD birr sb., Dance bur, Bj. 204, 306, de Vries byrr, Mag. byr, Orel *ƀuriz (II), AEW byre (4), DOE byre (3)