Forms: 3 burjon, 4 bor-, burioun, -ion, -ioyn, -gean, borgun, 4–7 burgen, 5 bergyng, burgyon, 6 burgeant, -gine, burryon, 7–9 bourgeon, 4– burgeon. [ME. borioun, burioun, -jon, a. OFr. bor-, burjon, mod.Fr. bourgeon, of uncertain etymology. (Diez suggests its derivation from OHG. burjan to raise, to hold up.) The sb. and its derived vb. seem to have died out in ordinary and even in poetic use before the 18th c., but to have survived as technical terms in gardening. In the 19th c. they have been revived in poetry; the use of the sb. in Zool. corresponds to that of mod.F. bourgeon.]
1. A swelling bud, a young shoot of a plant. Now only poet. b. Zool. A ‘bud’ or reproductive germ of a zoophyte.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 10735. Quilk o þaim þat þar burjon [Gött. burioun] Suld spus þat mai.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, V. 10. The treis begouth to ma Burgeonys.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (1840), 56. To se burgyons on a dede drye stok.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 81. The sette must be … full of knottes and jointes, and many little burgeons.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 476. The Vine in her eies and burgeons.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Burgeon, in gardening, a knot or button put forth by the branch of a tree in the spring.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 129/2. The parent … throws out burgeons or buds from its surface.
1876. Swinburne, Erechtheus, 1170. Bounteous with … burgeon of birth.
2. fig.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, 513. My lare … make to be grene in ȝou the burioyns of vertus.
1577. Harrison, England, III. xiv. (1878), II. 91. Nascad originall burgeant of the kings of Essex.
1655–60. Stanley, Hist. Chaldaick Philos. (1701), 11/2. The bourgeons even of ill matter are beneficial and good.
† 3. transf. A slight swelling or pimple. Obs.
1597. Lowe, Chirurg. (1634), 83. Furuncle is a tumor procreate of the like humor, as the burgens of the face.
