Burgundy is the deep red of a heavy wine. A burgundy jumper, burgundy leather, painted burgundy.
It is darker than red and browner than maroon, and it is the colour of about a third of all school uniforms in Britain. With a capital letter, Burgundy is the French region, and burgundy is its wine — red burgundy is made from pinot noir. Note claret, which is the equivalent word for the red of Bordeaux and is also a colour; and that both colours are named after the wine rather than the other way round.
1adjectiveburgundyThe deep red of a heavy wine.
“She wore a burgundy velvet dress to the Christmas party.”
burgundy is a colour.
The region is named after the Burgundians, a Germanic people who settled there in the fifth century. So a school jumper in Yorkshire is named, at three removes, after a migration across the Rhine.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰerǵʰ-
English, today
burgundy
Built from
1881, from attributive use of Burgundy (“wine from Burgundy”) from Burgundy wine, from Burgundy (“region of France”) + wine.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA