Other forms: burgeoning, burgeoned
To burgeon is to grow or increase very quickly. Something small becoming something large in a hurry.
The original sense is botanical, since to burgeon is to put out buds, and that image of sudden spring growth sits underneath every modern use. The adjective burgeoning is far commoner than the verb and appears constantly in reporting, so a burgeoning industry or a burgeoning population is one expanding fast. It is formal and slightly journalistic, and flourish is the warmer alternative.
1verbburgeonTo grow or expand rapidly.
“Demand began to burgeon within months.”
Proto-Germanic
*burjô — sprout, descendant, offshoot
Frankish
*burjō — sprout, offshoot, descendant
Anglo-Norman
burjun
Middle English
burjon,burjoun — shoot, bud
English, today
burgeon
From Middle English burjon,burjoun (“shoot, bud”), from Anglo-Norman burjun, burgeon, burgon (compare Old French burjon (“a bud”)), from Old Frankish burjō (“sprout, offshoot, descendant”), from Proto-Germanic burjô (“sprout, descendant, offshoot”), from Proto-Germanic burjaną (“to raise up”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰer-. Compare Old High German burjan, burien, burren (“to push up, raise”), Old English byrian (“to come up, occur”), Old English byre (“child, son, descendant”), Albanian buron (“sprout, spring, gush out”). More at bear. Alternate etymology derives Old French burjon (“bud”) from Vulgar Latin burrionem, accusative of burrio, from Latin burra (“wool, fluff”) (presumably from the down covering certain buds).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word