Strasburg

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A historic city in northeastern France on the Rhine River, serving as the seat of the European Parliament
2. The German-style spelling of a French city on the Rhine that is the capital of the Alsace region
3. Name of a historic city in Alsace, eastern France, located on the border with Germany across the Rhine

Etymology: The city's name is a compound of two ordinary German words: "Straße", meaning street or road, and "Burg", meaning borough, fortified town or castle. Together they describe a settlement at the crossing of important routes, which suits Strasbourg's position on the Rhine, where trade roads from across Europe met the river. The name passed into Middle High German as "Strāzburc" and from there reached French as Strasbourg. The form "strasburg" is an obsolete spelling of the city's name, preserved from an earlier stage of English usage. It keeps the German shape of the name more closely than the modern French-influenced "Strasbourg" does, and the final consonant pattern shows the name's German origin.