Vintage

How to spell vintage

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce vintage

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does vintage mean?

1. nounThe year or place in which a particular wine was produced, or the wine from that harvest.
2. adjectiveDating from an earlier period and valued for its quality or character.

Vintage in a sentence

• noun

  The sommelier checked the vintage printed on the label before pouring.

• adjective

  She restored a vintage sports car in the garage every weekend.

• noun

  That vintage was famous for its long dry summer and exceptional grapes.

• adjective

  The boutique sold vintage dresses from the 1950s.

Where does vintage come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin vindemia, meaning 'the grape harvest', which was built from vinum 'wine' and demere 'to take away or remove', so the root sense was literally the gathering in of the grapes. It passed into Old French as vendange, and English borrowed an early form in the 1400s that was originally spelled something like 'vendage'. Over time the spelling was reshaped under the influence of 'vintner' and the Latin vinum, giving the modern 'vint-' beginning that trips writers who expect a 'vend-' sound. From naming the harvest itself, the meaning widened to the wine made in a particular year, then to the year stamped on a bottle, and finally to the broader idea of something dating from an admired earlier period. That last shift is why we now speak of vintage cars and vintage clothing, things prized precisely because of their age and quality.

How the word is built

• vint- (from Latin vindemia: grape harvest)
• -age (noun suffix denoting a process or its result)