Bordeaux

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of red wine produced mainly from grapes cultivated in a famous French region
2. A city located in southwestern France celebrated for its wine industry and charming urban design
3. A renowned wine variety originating from a notable French area known for its vineyards and wine production

Etymology: The city's name has a Celtic root that passed through Latin and Occitan before reaching English. The Romans called the place Burdigala, and the Gaulish tribe who lived there, the Biturīges, appear in the name's ancestry too, with the Proto-Celtic base probably meaning something like "world-king" or "ruler of the world," though that reading remains uncertain. Over the centuries the Latin form softened into Old Occitan "Bordel," the local name the city carried in the languages of the Garonne valley. From there the name moved north into French as Bordeaulx in Middle French, later simplified to the modern Bordeaux. English borrowed the French spelling directly, so the city's name reached English in its French shape rather than through its Latin or Occitan forms. The wine name is the same word used as a geographic label: "Bordeaux" on a bottle identifies a wine from the surrounding region, and the word is also used for the deep red colour associated with it.