Littleborough

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in the metropolitan borough of Rochdale in Greater Manchester, located in northwestern England
2. A urban area situated in Greater Manchester in the northwest of England, part of the Rochdale local authority
3. A locality in Greater Manchester, England, positioned in the metropolitan area northwest of Manchester city centre

Etymology: Littleborough is a place name, not a common word, and its story is one of two possible readings that the old English name itself allows. The first element is Old English "lytel", meaning "little", and the second can be either "burh", a fortified settlement or town, or "brōc", a brook or stream. So the name may mean "little town" or "little brook", and the surviving spelling does not settle which one the first settlers had in mind. The name is a piecewise doublet of Littlebury and Luxembourg, which means the three names share the same Old English building blocks but have been worn down differently over the centuries. Luxembourg, for instance, descends from the same "little" and "burh" elements, yet its modern form looks nothing like the English place name, which shows how far a single pair of Old English words can travel in different directions.