noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   One who burkes; one who murders in order to sell the body to an anatomist, surgeon, etc. UK, historical, slang

   "Science was in league with the "burkers" and "body-snatchers," […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms

assassinbutchercannibalcutthroatdesperadoexterminator

Example

More examples

"Science was in league with the "burkers" and "body-snatchers," […]"

Etymology

From burke + -er.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.