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vintage

[vin-tij]
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noun
  1. the wine from a particular harvest or crop.
  2. the annual produce of the grape harvest, especially with reference to the wine obtained.
  3. an exceptionally fine wine from the crop of a good year.
  4. the time of gathering grapes, or of winemaking.
  5. the act or process of producing wine; winemaking.
  6. the class of a dated object with reference to era of production or use: a hat of last year's vintage.
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adjective
  1. of or relating to wines or winemaking.
  2. being of a specified vintage: Vintage wines are usually more expensive than nonvintage wines.
  3. representing the high quality of a past time: vintage cars; vintage movies.
  4. old-fashioned or obsolete: vintage jokes.
  5. being the best of its kind: They praised the play as vintage O'Neill.
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verb (used with object), vin·taged, vin·tag·ing.
  1. to gather or harvest (grapes) for wine-making: The muscats were vintaged too early.
  2. to make (wine) from grapes: a region that vintages a truly great champagne.
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verb (used without object), vin·taged, vin·tag·ing.
  1. to harvest grapes for wine-making.
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Origin of vintage

1400–50; late Middle English (noun) < Anglo-French, equivalent to vint(er) vintner + -age -age; replacing Middle English vindage, vendage < Anglo-French; Old French vendange < Latin vīndēmia grape-gathering, equivalent to vīn(um) grape, wine + -dēmia a taking away (dēm(ere) to take from (see redeem) + -ia -y3)
Related formsnon·vin·tage, adjective, nounun·vin·taged, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

wineprimeoldclassicalclassicchoicebestorigingenerationcollectionepocheraharvestgrapesyearexcellentmaturerareripeselect

Examples from the Web for vintage

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • You are as much out of your place as a vintage wine at a harvest supper.

    Micah Clarke

    Arthur Conan Doyle

  • The wine-making season the world over is known as the "vintage."

  • No little Baden vintage, no small wine of the Bergstrasse, can impose upon us!

    A Day's Ride

    Charles James Lever

  • She was, as far as age was concerned, a little "beyond the vintage."

    Debts of Honor

    Maurus Jkai

  • I'll give you a dinner at the Bertolini to-night, and you may have the magnum of any vintage you like.

    The Lure of the Mask

    Harold MacGrath

British Dictionary definitions for vintage

vintage

noun
  1. the wine obtained from a harvest of grapes, esp in an outstandingly good year, referred to by the year involved, the district, or the vineyard
  2. the harvest from which such a wine is obtained
    1. the harvesting of wine grapes
    2. the season of harvesting these grapes or for making wine
  4. a time of origina car of Edwardian vintage
  5. informal a group of people or objects of the same perioda fashion of last season's vintage
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adjective
  1. (of wine) of an outstandingly good year
  2. representative of the best and most typicalvintage Shakespeare
  3. of lasting interest and importance; venerable; classicvintage films
  4. old-fashioned; dated
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verb
  1. (tr) to gather (grapes) or make (wine)
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Word Origin

C15: from Old French vendage (influenced by vintener vintner), from Latin vindēmia, from vīnum wine, grape + dēmere to take away (from dē- away + emere to take)
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for vintage

n.

mid-15c., "harvest of grapes, yield of wine from a vineyard," from Anglo-French vintage (mid-14c.), from Old French vendage "yield from a vineyard," from Latin vindemia "a gathering of grapes, yield of grapes," from comb. form of vinum "wine" (see wine) + stem of demere "take off" (from de- "from, away from" + emere "to take;" see exempt). Sense shifted to "age or year of a particular wine" (1746), then to a general adjectival sense of "being of an earlier time" (1883). Used of cars since 1928.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper