mignonette

English

Alternative forms

• mignonnette (obsolete)

Etymology

A botanical illustration of the mignonette (Reseda odorata; sense 1)

From French mignonnette, from mignon (“dainty”) + -ette (diminutive suffix).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌmɪnjəˈnɛt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛt
• Hyphenation: mig‧non‧ette

Noun

mignonette (plural mignonettes)

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. [from early 18th c.]
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 2:

     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!"

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 43, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     These rooms were on a level with the apartments of our friends Bows and Costigan next door at No. 4; and by reaching over the communicating leads, Grady could command the mignonette-box which bloomed in Bows’s window.

2. A mignonette tree (Lawsonia inermis), source of the dye henna.
3. A mignonette vine
4. A greyish-green colour, like that of the flowers of the plant.

   mignonette:  

Synonyms

• (plant): reseda (one sense)
• (colour): reseda

Translations

the plant Reseda odorata

• Bulgarian: жълта резеда f (žǎlta rezeda)
• Catalan: marduixí m
• Dutch: tuinreseda f
• Finnish: tuoksureseda
• Galician: reseda f
• German: Garten-Resede f
• Irish: buí cumhra m
• Polish: rezeda wonna f
• Romanian: rezedă (ro) f, rozetă (ro) f
• Russian: резеда́ (ru) f (rezedá)

greyish-green colour — see also reseda

• German: resedagrün (de)

Adjective

mignonette (comparative more mignonette, superlative most mignonette)

1. Of a greyish-green colour, like that of the flowers of the plant.
   • 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 44:

     She wore a dishabille of mignonette-green silk and bead-diapered head-dress that added several inches to her height […].

Synonyms

• reseda

Related terms

• mignonette pepper
• mignonette sauce

See also

• dyer's rocket
• Appendix:Colors

Further reading

• Reseda odorata on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• mignonette (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mi.ɲɔ.nɛt/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

mignonette f (plural mignonettes)

1. Alternative form of mignonnette

Anagrams

• témoignent