Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of several Mediterranean plants of the genus Reseda, especially R. odorata, widely cultivated for its terminal, dense, spikelike clusters of very fragrant but inconspicuous greenish flowers.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A well-known plant, Reseda odorata, native in northern Africa. Its racemes of small greenish-white flowers with prominent brown anthers are not showy, but the plant is a universal favorite in gardens on account of its fragrance. In ordinary culture it is an annual, but it is naturally shrubby, and by proper care can be made to thrive for several years in the form of tree-mignonette. The perfume is best extracted by enfleurage.
- n. Some other species of the genus Reseda. The white mignonette, R. alba, a tall plant with white scentless blossoms, has sometimes been cultivated. The wild or dyer's mignonette, R. luteola, is better known as dyer's-weed or yellow-weed. See
dyer's-weed
Wiktionary
- n. A plant (Reseda odorata) having greenish flowers with orange-colored stamens, and exhaling a delicious fragrance. In Africa it is a low shrub, but further north it is usually an annual herb.
- n. A grey-green colour, like that of the plant.
- adj. Of a grey-green colour, like that of the plant.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) A plant (Reseda odorata) having greenish flowers with orange-colored stamens, and exhaling a delicious fragrance. In Africa it is a low shrub, but further north it is usually an annual herb.
WordNet 3.0
- n. Mediterranean woody annual widely cultivated for its dense terminal spikelike clusters greenish or yellowish white flowers having an intense spicy fragrance
Etymologies
- French mignonette, from mignon ("dainty") + -ette ("diminutive suffix"). (Wiktionary)
- French, from feminine of mignonnet, dainty, pretty, from Old French, diminutive of mignon, lover, dainty. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Either she would be very severe, flat back and front, or she would be tall, fair, dressed in mignonette green, name – Daisy, and smelling of rather sweetish lavender water.”
“In order to break up extremes of colours you can always use masses of white flowers, or something like mignonette, which is in effect green.”
“In the garden-borders the mignonette is a very inconspicuous little plant, and passes almost unnoticed beside the flaunting gaudiness of the dahlia or the showy spikes of the hollyhock, yet it is from that modest, low-growing, grey-green flower that comes the sweetness that perfumes the whole air, for the most optimistic person would hardly expect fragrance from dahlias or hollyhocks.”
“Plants which only live one year, such as mignonette, the sweet pea, and the poppy, take in just enough food to supply their daily wants and to make the seeds we shall speak of presently.”
“Is that mignonette which is so oppressively fragrant?' she asked, lifting the bouquet to her nose.”
“Yellow: champagne (19); lemon (22), and reseda (mignonette) (22);”
“The best, though, is also the simplest appropriate, as "Desnuda" is Spanish for "nude" or "bare": raw Beau Soleil oysters with chipotle mignonette, shallot-tosazu gelee and other seasonal sauces.”
“Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal Oysters, with shallot-tozazu gelee and chipotle mignonette.”
“Inside the walls of outwardly ramshackle homes, roses crept alongside flowering myrtle, fragrant jasmine, mignonette, six-foot-tall scarlet dahlias stood next to orange, pink, and purple bougainvillea.”
“I started with oysters on the half shell with a mignonette sauce simple because I don't remember a meal I've eaten at the Milky Way without oysters.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mignonette’.
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LIT - Ulysses - key words and phrases
money cowrie, bedraggle, omphalos, ineluctable, postprandial, bladderwrack, modality barnacle..., loofah, shipworm, cither, embattle, Malachi and 503 more...
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Another 250 Spelling Words
Another range of words from the intermediate to the advanced speller's level.
cherimoya, parthenogenesis, sommelier, bupkis, kichel, voulge, indivisibility, retiarius, sewellel, vihuela, ossature, jalfrezi and 238 more...
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Aromata Aromatica
Fragrant things and terms that describe them. Generic names of botanical binomials aren't capitalized if the unconventional lower case form has a useful Wordnik definition. I'm primarily seeking te...
hircine, ajwain, alliin, anisaldehyde, sotolon, spicebush, sweetbox, wintergreen, valencene, citrusy, citronellal, full-bodied and 162 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (M)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
mace, macintosh, madras, magenta, magic 8 ball, magma, mahogany, maiden, mail, mainsail, maize, malachite and 169 more...
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snickclunk's Words
bespoke, freshet, coquette, lath, victrola, feckless, viridian, lariat, sargasso, sobriquet, grift, sophistry and 134 more...
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Journey to the Centre of the Earth
From the story by Jules Verne.
rhombohedral crys..., retinasphaltic re..., gehlenites, Fassaites, molybdenites, tungstates, manganese, titanite, zirconium, disenchant, mignonette, bibliomania and 101 more...
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Chromonyms
These chromonyms are defined as colors in at least one dictionary (mostly MW3). (Actually there's one fake, for reasons I'll explain someday.) They are all one-word nouns such as "kelly", which can...
absinthe, acacia, acorn, alabaster, alesan, almond, aloma, amaranth, amber, amethyst, anemone, anil and 821 more...
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Fabrics
Woven, knit and tatted fabrics. Other kinds of cloth, such as tapa and chamois are not included.
shikii, shantung, cotton, linen, tweed, wool, velour, velvet, velveteen, gabardine, chenille, silk and 550 more...
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Flowers/plants
yarrow, chicory, black-eyed susan, goldenrod, bluebell, columbine, prickly pear, periwinkle, myrtle, forget-me-not, trillium, celadine and 63 more...
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kelson's Words
oriole, cerulean, damask, luminous, bobolink, camellia, halcyon, anemone, chalice, asphodel, tendril, myrrh and 6 more...
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four
another list of good words, yo.
plasma, enology, cayenne, mare's tail, rosehip, hideous, rojak, vigilante, arsenic, scandal, mutiny, espionage and 88 more...
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Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty
Culled.
asphodel, fawn, dawn, chalice, anemone, tranquil, hush, golden, halcyon, camellia, bobolink, thrush and 38 more...
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vegetation
names of plants, flowers, trees, etc.
laburnum, mignonette, ilex, vetch, sedge, gentian, plane, linden, jade plant, ginkgo, dragon tree, agave and 50 more...
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.flora
amaranth, anther, apothecary, birch, bloom, bramble, briar, cedar, clove, currant, thorn, thicket and 63 more...
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noggie42's Words
kleptocracy, zeugma, shilly-shally, hierophant, maunder, periwinkle, verisimilitude, diphthong, flippant, ludicrous, kreplach, gullet and 69 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mignonette.

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