Etymology

zinfandel

Z10I1N1F4A1N1D2E1L1

Today it means: A dry red wine of California. Full definition →

German Zierfandler
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. German · borrowed fromZierfandler
  2. English todayzinfandel

Unknown origin; wine sense used from 1896, grape sense from 1880. Possibly a transmission of German Zierfandler, a different wine grape, through a Hungarian intermediary such as czirifandli (now Cirfandli).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.