burgeon

verb

bur·​geon ˈbər-jən 

variants or less commonly bourgeon

burgeoned also bourgeoned; burgeoning also bourgeoning; burgeons also bourgeons

intransitive verb

1

a

: to send forth new growth (such as buds or branches) : sprout

b

: bloom

when the flame trees and jacaranda are burgeoning

—Alan Carmichael

2

: to grow and expand rapidly : flourish

The market for her work has burgeoned in recent years.

tiny events which burgeon into national alarums

—Herman Wouk

Did you know?

Burgeon arrived in Middle English as burjonen, a borrowing from the Anglo-French verb burjuner, meaning "to bud or sprout." Burgeon is often used figuratively, as when writer Ta-Nehisi Coates used it in his 2008 memoir The Beautiful Struggle: "… I was in the burgeoning class of kids whose families made too much for financial aid but not enough to make tuition payments anything less than a war." Usage commentators have objected to the use of burgeon to mean "to flourish" or "to grow rapidly," insisting that any figurative use should stay true to the word's earliest literal meaning and distinguish budding or sprouting from subsequent growing. But the sense of burgeon that indicates growing or expanding and prospering (as in "the burgeoning music scene" or "the burgeoning international market") has been in established use for decades and is, in fact, the most common use of burgeon today.

Synonyms

• accelerate
• accumulate
• appreciate
• balloon
• boom
• build up
• climb
• enlarge
• escalate
• expand
• gain
• increase
• mount
• multiply
• mushroom
• proliferate
• rise
• roll up
• snowball
• spread
• swell
• wax

Examples of burgeon in a Sentence

The market for collectibles has burgeoned in recent years.

the trout population in the stream is burgeoning now that the water is clean

Recent Examples on the Web

Then-administrator Jim Bridenstine pushed for the agency to more aggressively tap into the burgeoning US commercial space industry. —Ars Technica, 23 Dec. 2024

Britt Lower, who plays Helly, Mark’s co-worker and burgeoning love interest, said that there were strict standards around the tidiness of the innies’ hair styles. —Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2024

As government agencies prepare for a potential shutdown, questions about the government’s response to a potentially burgeoning H5N1 bird flu pandemic are top of mind for many public health and agriculture officials. —Susanne Rust, Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec. 2024

Radiation pressure from the burgeoning star at the heart of the disk is usually what determines the lifetime of a disk, but the process is more efficient when there are heavy, dust-forming elements present in the disk for the star's photons to push on. —Keith Cooper, Space.com, 20 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English burjonen, from Anglo-French burjuner, from burjun bud, from Vulgar Latin *burrion-, burrio, from Late Latin burra fluff, shaggy cloth

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

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Kids Definition

burgeon

verb

bur·​geon ˈbər-jən 

1

a

: to put forth new growth (as buds)

b

: bloom entry 2 sense 1

2

: expand sense 3, flourish