Champagne

How to spell champagne

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce champagne

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does champagne mean?

1. nounA sparkling white wine produced in the Champagne region of France, often served to mark celebrations.
2. nounA pale golden or warm off-white colour, named after the wine.

Champagne in a sentence

• The waiter poured a glass of champagne for each guest at the reception.

• The bride chose a champagne gown rather than a stark white one.

• They uncorked a bottle of champagne to toast the new business.

• She repainted the hallway in a soft champagne that warmed the space.

Where does champagne come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes straight from the name of the Champagne region in north-eastern France, the chalky area where the sparkling wine has been produced for centuries. The place name itself derives from the Late Latin campania, meaning 'level open countryside' or 'plain', which in turn grew from campus, the Latin word for 'a field'. The same campania root also gave English the word 'campaign', because military campaigns were originally conducted in open country, so the two words are surprisingly close cousins. English adopted champagne in the late 1600s as the prestige of the region's wine spread, keeping the French spelling intact rather than anglicising it. That preserved French form, with its silent 'g' and the '-agne' ending that sounds like plain 'ain', is exactly what makes the word a recurring spelling trap.

How the word is built

• champagne (from the French region Champagne, ultimately Latin campania 'open country')