Pinot

How to spell pinot

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pinot

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pinot mean?

1. nounA family of grape varieties, or the wine made from them, including pinot noir and pinot grigio.

Pinot in a sentence

• The sommelier recommended a chilled pinot grigio with the fish.

• She ordered a glass of pinot noir to go with the roast beef.

Where does pinot come from?

Language of origin: French

Pinot is a French word that began as a description of the grape bunch itself: it derives from 'pin', the French word for 'pine', because the tight, tapering clusters of the grape were thought to resemble a small pine cone. The diminutive ending '-ot' softened the sense to something like 'little pine', and the name attached to a famous family of grape varieties grown in Burgundy and beyond. English speakers adopted the word directly from French along with the wines themselves, keeping the original French spelling and the silent final 't'. It survives today in the names of well known varieties such as pinot noir ('black pinot'), pinot gris or grigio ('grey pinot'), and pinot blanc ('white pinot'), where the colour word simply describes the skin of the grape. The retained French pronunciation, with its unspoken 't', is exactly the feature that trips up writers who expect the spelling to match the sound.

How the word is built

• pin (pine, from the cone shape of the grape cluster)
• -ot (French diminutive suffix)