Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to murder; thus burking, murdering to provide bodies for dissection.

1829		Times 2 Feb. 3/5: As soon as the executioner proceeded to his duty, the cries of ‘Burke him, Burke him – give him no rope’ [...] were vociferated [...] ‘Burke Hare too!’.
1831		‘Trial . . . of Bishop & Williams, The Burkers’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 190: The horrible crime of ‘Burking’ or murdering the unwary with the intention of selling their bodies at a high price to the anatomical schools, for the purpose of dissection.
1831		Satirist (London) 20 Nov. 258/3: suspected burking.--In consequence of the attempt to ‘Burke’ the young woman [...] at Somerstown, the inhabitants, especially the female portion, are living in a state of great apprehension.
1832		Spirit of the Times (NY) 14 Apr. 4/2: [of the failed abduction and murder of a child] If this is a case of ‘Burking’ and we have good reason to think it so, then none are safe.
1841		‘Ax My Eye’ Dublin Comic Songster 101: Then at night am vorking burking, / Hocussing or kening svag!
1850		Fast Man 10:1 n.p.: Angelina.—oh! I never ! I have burked my father!
1856		Age (Melbourne) 10 Oct. 5/6: Mr Taylor said ‘burked’ was a slang term. He should like to know what meaning Dr Thomson at tached to it?
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 29/1: A London boy hates being by himself in a lone country part. He’s afraid of being burked.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 17 May 18/1: ‘Ask him [i.e. a rich uncle] here to dine [...] and if the worst comes to the worst, we’ll Burke him’.
1888		‘The Workhouse Boy’ in J. Ashton Modern Street Ballads 351: And veeks roll’d on;—ve vere all of us told, / That somebody said, he’d been burk’d and sold.
1893		(con. 1830s) H. Vizetelly Glances Back I 43: The burking scare, following on the murder of the Italian boy by Bishop and Williams in 1831, was at its height.
1908		D. Stewart Wild Tribes of London in Illus. Police News 18 Jan. 12/1: ‘I’d knife, garrott, or burke my man, but blowed if I could tackle a woman’.

2. of individuals, activities: to suppress, to cover up, to stifle.

1832		Satirist (London) 4 Mar. 77/2: Thus the Tories were burked, and here let’s stop.
1838		R.S. Surtees Jorrocks Jaunts (1874) 262: Now for the grouse! [...] Hope you havn’t burked your appetites, gentlemen, so as not to be able to do justice to them.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Feb. 2/1: Mrs Thompson roared so long and loud last night while reading it [...] that he was obliged to put the candle down and burke her.
1844		A. Smith Adventures of Mr Ledbury III 116: It’s the patents that burke it.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 108: The term burke is now usually applied to any project that is quietly stopped or stifled ? as ‘the question has been burked.’ A book suppressed before publication is said to be burked.
1871		Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 20 May 4/1: [T]o get things on the cheap — to burke, n fact, the veterinary surgeon of his fee.
1879		‘’Arry on the Rail’ in Punch 13 Sept. 109/1: As for langwidge! [...] / Is a chap on the scoop to be burked for a ‘blowed’ or a ‘blooming’ too much?
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 9/1: ‘A boy’s best friend is his mother’ is of the washy, sentimental sort that appeals to very young and emotional people or to very old and hardened ones (we’ve known bald-headed old scamps who cheated diggers with false weights and ‘burked’ justice with false evidence to whine for an hour over ‘Ben Bolt’), but makes persons in their prime look round for someone to assault.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 15 Apr. 1/1: Enquiries in the Assembly elicited the fact that it cost the Crown nearly £3000 to burke the charges made by Mr Schey.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 124: To admit that I had some difficulty in burking poor Kangaroo’s confession will act as a salve to my soul.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.