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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Burke \Burke\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Burked}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Burking}.] [From one Burke of Edinburgh, who committed the crime in 1829.]
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. 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.
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