| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| vintage |
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| SYLLABICATION: | vin·tage |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  v n tj |
| NOUN: | 1. The yield of wine or grapes from a vineyard or district during one season. 2. Wine, usually of high quality, identified as to year and vineyard or district of origin. 3. The year or place in which a wine is bottled. 4a. The harvesting of a grape crop. b. The initial stages of winemaking. 5. Informal a. A group or collection of people or things sharing certain characteristics. b. A year or period of origin: a car of 1942 vintage. c. Length of existence; age. | | ADJECTIVE: | 1. Of or relating to a vintage. 2. Characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal; classic. 3. Old or outmoded. 4a. Of the best: played songs that were vintage Cole Porter. b. Of the most distinctive: “Fatalism has coexisted with vintage American overconfidence” (Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe October 19, 1989). | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, alteration (influenced by viniter, vintner) of Old French vendange, from Latin v nd mia : vnum, grapes + dmere, to take off ( d, de- + emere, to obtain; see em- in Appendix I).
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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