Astbury

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A surname borne by William Astbury, the English physicist who used X-ray diffraction to study protein structure ; a village in the English county of Cheshire
2. The family name of an English scientist who pioneered X-ray analysis of biological molecules ; a small settlement located in Cheshire in northwest England
3. Name of a British crystallographer famous for early work on protein structure ; a rural village in the county of Cheshire in England

Etymology: Astbury is less a word than a place name that became a family name. It is a village in Cheshire, in north-west England, and its name combines Old English "ēast", meaning "east", with "byriġ", the dative form of "burh", meaning "fortified place". The name therefore points to a settlement lying to the east of something, with a defensive site or stronghold in its background. Surnames of this kind, called habitational surnames, were typically taken from the places where a family lived or held land. Over the medieval period, people who moved from Astbury to other parts of England carried the name with them, and it passed down as a hereditary surname. Today it is most often met as a personal name rather than as a reference to the village, though the two remain linked through that origin.