English
bourbon
Bourbon may come from Proto-Celtic *borvo ‘froth, foam’.
- Proto-Celticc. 1300–800 BCE*borvo‘froth, foam’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1946bourbon
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Proto-Celticc. 1300–800 BCE*borvo‘froth, foam’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1946bourbon
Earliest quotation: 1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist: “It concerns the gnomelike quality of the average American…”
The story
From bourbon whiskey, originally Bourbon whiskey, of disputed provenance.disputed Scholars disagree here; the competing view is quoted as the source gives it. Generally taken to derive from Bourbon County, Kentucky, but possibly also from Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. Both derive from the French Bourbon dynasty, named for the lordship of French Bourbon l'Archambault. The town's name derives from Borvo, a local Celtic deity associated with hot springs, from Proto-Celtic *borvo (‘froth, foam’), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- (‘to be hot, boil’).
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- ‘to be hot, boil’
brand, bread, burn, purple, brew, broth, brunt, brim, fervor, fervent, ferment, bourne, bren, effervescent, broil, porphyry, briny, purpura, 40 more
Today it means
noun A whiskey distilled in the United States from a mixture of grains in which at least 51% is corn, aged in charred, new oak barrels.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Celtic *borvo / bourbon