Log in or Sign up
  1. lagniappe love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi A small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the customer's purchase.
  2. n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot2. See Regional Note at beignet.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Louisiana, Trinidad and Tobago An extra or unexpected gift or benefit, such as that given to a customer when they purchase something else.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. In Louisiana, a trifling present given to customers by tradesmen; a gratuity.
  2. n. A tip or gratuity.
  3. n. Anything obtained gratuitously or unexpectedly.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a small gift (especially one given by a merchant to a customer who makes a purchase)

Etymologies

  1. From Cajun French, from Spanish la ñapa variant of yapa, from Quechua yapay. (Wiktionary)
  2. Louisiana French, from American Spanish la ñapa, the gift : la, the (from Latin illa, feminine of ille, that, the; see al-1 in Indo-European roots) + ñapa (variant of yapa, gift, from Quechua, from yapay, to give more). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “NEW ORLEANS — In these parts, they refer to it as lagniappe, a Cajun word that roughly translated means “a little bit extra.””

    Saints Beat Farve, Vikings. | CurveHouse.com

  • “What we call a lagniappe, a little somethin 'extra.”

    License Invoked

  • “It is the unearnable gift, the divine reversal and sacred surprise, the still small voice that drowns out the din of the maddening crowd, the little bit extra that my Cajun friends call lagniappe, the very thing we "deserve" the least but get anyway.”

    The Huffington Post: Cathleen Falsani: Thanks(giving) Be to God

  • “Just to entertain you, I'll pass on that JR, at L'homme qui marche, seeing "lagniappe" in your last entry, decided to look it up.”

    An Awful Mess

  • “Baksheesh or whatever they call it; every language has its own word from "lagniappe" to "pishkesh" to "mordida" "h'eung yau" is - am I stereotyping yet or will a scholar back me up?”

    "Bhutto was fearless."

  • “Waller's music, as "lagniappe," while cold chills raced up and down the spines of his hearers -- more or less immune to sensations of that character.”

    The Dead Men's Song Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its Author Young Ewing Allison

  • “Tellem "JOE PARIS" sent you and receive some "lagniappe" with your meal!”

    WN.com - Articles related to Ethnic group in Myanmar gears up for war, peace

  • “Thirty-three teams prepared barbecue and "lagniappe" side dishes for about 1,300 guests to enjoy in the shade of the soaring Live oaks of Oaklawn, home of Don and Peggy Sprabery, who host this event annually to help support the orchestra.”

    Homepage

  • “Local revelers are expected to come out to party, but raising money for a good cause is more than just "lagniappe," a Louisiana term for "a little something extra.”

    poststar.com RSS

  • “The "lagniappe" gift comes in addition to the $100,000 yearly grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation that was secured by the local program after reaching membership goals and achieving success in its programs.”

    Daily Headlines

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

synonyms (1)

Words with the same meaning

  1. gratuity

equivalents (1)

Other words for ‘lagniappe’

  1. lagnappe

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. gift

same context (12)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. prolusions
  2. professionalization
  1. reconcilement
  2. sexology
  1. librarianship
  2. heirarchy
  1. kook
  2. lastyear
  1. unco
  2. gooseflesh
  1. accreditation
  2. bestsellers

reverse dictionary (2)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. boot
  1. brotus

tags (3)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. cvccvvccv
  1. gn
  1. trinidadian

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘lagniappe’.

More lists containing ‘lagniappe’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • apgarian like swag, right? Sep 5, 2009

  • rolig "We picked up one excellent word – a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice, limber, expressive, handy word – 'lagniappe.' They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish – so they said."

    – Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi"

    (courtesy The Online Etymological Dictionary) Feb 2, 2009

  • reesetee Really? Who'd have guessed.... Oct 29, 2007

  • chained_bear Wow! This is derived from a Quechua term! Oct 28, 2007

  • niels Wikipedia cites Mark Twain pronouncing it lanny-yap, but in present day New Orleans it's pronounced LAN-yap, like your local area network is a LAN, and small dogs yap. LAN-yap. Mar 14, 2007

  • john "Call it a little lagniappe, goodbuddy, that’s Duane Marvy’s way o’ doin’ thangs."
    - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1973 Dec 7, 2006

  • angharad Somewhere between the "baker's dozen" and a bribe. Dec 4, 2006

Tweets

Looking for tweets for lagniappe.

‘lagniappe’ has been looked up 5419 times, loved by 20 people, added to 95 lists, commented on 7 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.