Burke

·vt To murder by suffocation, or so as to produce few marks of violence, for the purpose of obtaining a body to be sold for dissection.

II. Burke ·vt To dispose of quietly or indirectly; to Suppress; to Smother; to Shelve; as, to burke a parliamentary question.

Burke, Edmund
(1729-1797) Statesman, orator, and political philosopher, was the s. of an attorney in Dublin, wher...

Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin