Martini
name, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A cocktail made with gin or vodka and vermouth. countable, uncountable
"Will you join us at six o’clock for martinis?"
- 2 A breech mechanism for a rifle. obsolete
- 3 Alternative letter-case form of martini (a cocktail made with gin or vodka and vermouth). alt-of, countable, uncountable
"Only the priest and Major Hugh Edwards, a blind Englishman, drank Martini or something cheaper in the hot hours after noon and before the clumping sabots announced the working day’s end."
- 4 a cocktail made of gin (or vodka) with dry vermouth wordnet
- 5 Any cocktail served in a cocktail glass, often sweet or fruity and aimed at women. countable, proscribed, sometimes, uncountable
"I love the chocolate martinis at Trendy Bar!"
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- 6 A type of rifle using similar features.
"Now the butt of a Martini in the small of your back hurts a great deal"
- 7 A brand of Italian vermouth available in several versions, from the Martini & Rossi company. countable, uncountable
- 1 A surname from Italian.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples""What would you like to drink?" "A dry martini.""
Etymology
See Martini.
Named after Hungarian-born Swiss inventor Frédéric de Martini (1832–1897).
Martini is an Italian name, and in the sense of vermouth is used by the Italian company Martini & Rossi. In the sense “cocktail with vermouth and either gin or vodka”, coined in America in the 19th or 20th century, for which various theories exist – perhaps named for the Italian brand of vermouth, perhaps after Martinez, California, perhaps after an Italian bartender of that name.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.