Mignonette
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A plant, Reseda odorata, having greyish-green flowers with orange-coloured stamens, and exhaling a delicious fragrance. In Africa it is a low shrub, but further north it is usually an annual herb. countable, uncountable
"After amusing herself for a brief time with picking to pieces some mignonette which filled a box on the window-sill, Marie threw the flowers from her, and exclaimed,—"And here we are seated together, as we used to talk away half the night in Italy. Good Heavens! how we are altered!""
- 2 Mediterranean woody annual widely cultivated for its dense terminal spikelike clusters greenish or yellowish white flowers having an intense spicy fragrance wordnet
- 3 A mignonette tree (Lawsonia inermis), source of the dye henna. countable, uncountable
- 4 A mignonette vine. countable, uncountable
- 5 A greyish-green colour, like that of the flowers of the plant. countable, uncountable
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- 6 Short for mignonette sauce abbreviation, alt-of, countable, uncountable
- 1 Of a greyish-green colour, like that of the flowers of the plant.
"She wore a dishabille of mignonette-green silk and bead-diapered head-dress that added several inches to her height […]."
Example
More examples"After amusing herself for a brief time with picking to pieces some mignonette which filled a box on the window-sill, Marie threw the flowers from her, and exclaimed,—"And here we are seated together, as we used to talk away half the night in Italy. Good Heavens! how we are altered!""
Etymology
From French mignonnette, from mignon (“dainty”) + -ette (diminutive suffix).
Related phrases
More for "mignonette"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.