Nearby Words

burgeoned

[bur-juhn] Origin

bur·geon

[bur-juhn]
verb (used without object)
1.
to grow or develop quickly; flourish: The town burgeoned into a city. He burgeoned into a fine actor.
2.
to begin to grow, as a bud; put forth buds, shoots, etc., as a plant (often followed by out, forth).
verb (used with object)
3.
to put forth, as buds.

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Burgeoned is always a great word to know.
So is zedonk. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
noun
4.
a bud; sprout.
Also, bourgeon.


Origin:
1275–1325; (noun) Middle English burjon, burion; shoot, bud < Anglo-French burjun, burg(e)on; Old French burjon < Vulgar Latin *burriōne(m), accusative of *burriō, derivative of Late Latin burra wool, fluff (compare bourrée, bureau), presumably from the down covering certain buds; (v.) Middle English burg(e)onen, borgen < Anglo-French, Old French, derivative of the noun


1. bloom, blossom, mushroom, expand.


The two senses of burgeon, “to bud” (The maples are burgeoning) and “to grow or flourish” (The suburbs around the city have been burgeoning under the impact of commercial growth), date from the 14th century. Today the sense “to grow or flourish” is the more common. Occasionally, objections are raised to the use of this sense, perhaps because of its popularity in journalistic writing.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

burgeon
early 14c., from O.Fr. borjoner "to bud, sprout," from borjon "a bud, shoot, pimple," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Germanic. Related: Burgeoned; burgeoning.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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