BURKE

Definitions

1. 1. 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.
2. 2. To dispose of quietly or indirectly; to suppress; to smother; to shelve; as, to burke a parliamentary question. The court could not burke an inquiry, supported by such a mass of a affidavits. C. Reade.