vermouth

English

Etymology

From French vermout, vermouth, from German Wermut (“wormwood”). Doublet of wormwood.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /vəˈmuːθ/, /ˈvɜːməθ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /vɚˈmuθ/
• Rhymes: -uːθ

Noun

vermouth (countable and uncountable, plural vermouths)

1. A dry, or sweet apéritif wine flavored with aromatic herbs, and often used in mixed drinks.

   Hyponyms: Martini, (dated slang) French

   • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 14, in Crime out of Mind‎^[1]:

     He gazed around until on the lid of a spinet he spotted a promising collection of bottles, gin, whiskey, vermouth and sherry, mixed with violin bows, a flute, a toppling pile of books, six volumes of Grove's Dictionary mingled with paperback thrillers, a guitar without any strings, a pair of binoculars, a meerschaum pipe and a jar half-full of wasps and apricot jam.

   • 2014, Ray Foley, Bartending For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 116:

     Vermouth originated in the 18th century, when wine growers in the foothills of the French and Italian Alps developed a method of enhancing the taste of sour or uncompromising wines with the infusion of a variety of sweeteners, spices, herbs, roots, seeds, flowers, and peel.

   • 2023 July 20, Eric Asimov, “This Summer, Pause for the Vermouth Hour”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Earlier this year while in Madrid, I fell prey to what the Spanish call la hora del vermut, the vermouth hour, a break in the day for a glass, generally before eating.

2. A serving of vermouth.
   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 201:

     As we sat over our vermuths he glorified the Company’s business, and by-and-by I expressed casually my surprise at him not going out there.

Translations

wine infused with herbs

• Arabic: إِسْفِنْط m (ʔisfinṭ) (in antiquity), فِيرْمُوت m (firmut)
• Aramaic: אפסינתינון m (ap̄sinṭīnōn), אפסנתין m (ap̄sinṭīn)
• Armenian: վերմուտ (hy) (vermut)
• Asturian: vermú m
• Basque: bermut
• Belarusian: вермут (vjermut)
• Bulgarian: вермут (bg) m (vermut)
• Catalan: vermut (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 威末酒 (wai¹ mut⁶ zau²)

  Mandarin: 味美思 (zh) (wèiměisī)

• Chuvash: bермут (bermut)
• Czech: vermut (cs) m
• Dutch: vermout (nl) m
• Esperanto: vermuto
• Estonian: vermut
• Finnish: vermutti (fi)
• French: vermouth (fr) m
• Galician: vermú m
• Georgian: ვერმუთი (vermuti)
• German: Wermut (de) m
• Greek: βερμούτ (el) n (vermoút)

  Ancient: ἀψινθίτης m (apsinthítēs)

  Byzantine: ἀψίνθιον n (apsínthion), ἀψινθίατον n (apsinthíaton)

• Hebrew: ורמוט
• Hungarian: vermut (hu), ürmös (hu), ürmösbor (hu)
• Icelandic: vermút n
• Ido: vermuto (io)
• Interlingua: vermut
• Irish: fíon mormónta m
• Italian: vermut m
• Japanese: ベルモット (berumotto)
• Javanese: vermouth
• Korean: 베르무트 (bereumuteu)
• Latin: absinthium n, absinthiātum n
• Lithuanian: vermutas
• Macedonian: вермут m (vermut)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: vermut

• Persian: ورموت (fa) (vermut)
• Polish: wermut (pl) m
• Portuguese: vermute (pt) m
• Romanian: vermut (ro) n
• Russian: ве́рмут (ru) m (vérmut)
• Serbo-Croatian: vermut (sh) m
• Slovak: vermut
• Spanish: vermú (es) m, vermut
• Swedish: vermouth (sv) c, vermut (sv) c
• Tagalog: bermut
• Turkish: vermut (tr)
• Ukrainian: вермут (vermut)
• Volapük: vemut
• Welsh: fermŵth m
• Yiddish: ווערמוט (vermut)

Further reading

• vermouth on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Borrowed from German Wermut.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vɛʁ.mut/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

vermouth m (plural vermouths)

1. vermouth

Descendants

• → English: vermouth
• → Romanian: vermut
• → Turkish: vermut

Further reading

• “vermouth”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Noun

vermouth

1. vermouth