What does burying mean?
Burying is the present participle and gerund of the verb 'bury', describing the act of putting something or someone into the ground, or covering it entirely beneath a surface. Its most solemn use concerns interment of the dead, but the word extends readily to physical concealment—burying a treasure, a pipe, or a seed—and to powerful figurative senses. People bury their heads in the sand to ignore problems, bury the hatchet to end a quarrel, and bury themselves in work or study to shut out distraction. Journalists even speak of burying the lede when the key point of a story is hidden too far down. The word carries connotations ranging from grief and finality to secrecy and deliberate avoidance, making it a versatile and evocative choice in both everyday speech and literature.
An act or instance of burying; occasionally used as the gerund form of the verb.
"The burying of the cable took three days."
As a noun, this use is less common than the derived noun 'burial'; it typically appears in technical or descriptive contexts.
To place something in the ground, cover it fully, or hide it; to conceal or immerse figuratively.
"He was burying the pipes beneath the garden path."
Used with auxiliary verbs (was burying, is burying) for continuous tenses, or alone as a gerund after prepositions.
When you 'bury the hatchet,' you're echoing a real Iroquois tradition: chiefs literally buried their weapons to signal peace between nations.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of burying
Burying derives from the Old English verb 'byrgan' (also 'birian'), meaning to bury or enclose, which traces back to Proto-Germanic *bergan, meaning to protect or shelter. This root also produced the Germanic words behind 'borough', 'burrow', and 'borrow', all sharing the core idea of protection or enclosure. The sense of hiding something safely away has remained remarkably stable across more than a thousand years of English.
Related word forms
How burying is actually used
Neutral register; used in literal contexts (graves, objects) and richly extended figuratively in idioms such as 'bury the hatchet' (make peace) and 'bury one's head in the sand' (ignore a problem). In journalism, 'burying the lede' means placing the most important point too deep in a story.
Easily confused with burying
'Berrying' means gathering berries, while 'burying' means placing something underground or concealing it.
'Baring' means exposing or uncovering, which is nearly the opposite action of 'burying'.