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.
Examples of burgeon in a Sentence
Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 29 Jan. 2026
That new gondola runs three miles from a burgeoning base area, called East Village, to Park Peak, at 9,350 feet.
—Graham Averill, Outside, 29 Jan. 2026
The 31-year-old singer, along with director Costantini, sat down with The Times to unpack the ripple effects from that tumultuous summer of 2025 — as well as future plans for the burgeoning Latina pop star.
—Suzy Exposito, Los Angeles Times, 29 Jan. 2026
In the 1990s, Weeks was a Corning vice president tapped to run a new optical fiber business to power the burgeoning internet—an innovation that drove Corning’s valuation to nearly $100 billion at the height of the internet bubble in 2000.
—Sharon Goldman, Fortune, 27 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for burgeon
Cite this Entry
“Burgeon.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/burgeon. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
burgeon
verb
