Burking

Last night, I got locked out of my room, so while I was waiting for someone to come unlock my door, I began reading the only book I could find: Webster's World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition. The most memorable entry I found was on the verb "burke," which means "to murder by suffocating so as to leave the body unmarked and fit to be sold for dissection."

This intrigued me a lot, so I looked again, this time in the O.E.D., which gave a bit more context: "To murder, in the same manner or for the same purpose as Burke did; to kill secretly by suffocation or strangulation, or for the purpose of selling the victim's body for dissection."

As it turns out, burking comes from the acts of William Burke, who was a serial murderer in Scotland in 1828. Together with another man named William Hare, Burke would kill people and sell the corpses for dissection to Dr. Robert Knox.:

Hare, the more evil of the two men, suggested a further stroke of business, namely, to inveigle unknown and obscure wayfarers into the lodging-house and then kill them. During the following months they, assisted by their wives, murdered at least fifteen persons, their method of proceeding being to invite the victims into various homes, make them drunk, and then suffocate them in such a manner that no signs of violence appeared on the bodies. The corpses of all these were sold to Dr. Knox’s school of anatomy for prices averging from 8 shillings to 14 shillings.

-From the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 07, by George Clement Boase

Knox claimed that he knew nothing of the Willies' crimes, but most people think he was full of hooey. Regardless, the men all gained notoriety, and Burke's name became a part of common English usage before and after his execution in 1829. Hare evaded sentencing and, though no one truly knows what became of him, it seems likely that he hid and waited out his days for fear of recognition and public harassment.

Dapper lads (Burke and Hare, respectively)

I wonder if people will ever begin using other serial killers' names as verbs. I could really see "Gacy-ing" catching on for the act of masquerading as a scary clown...