Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the customer's purchase.
  • noun An extra or unexpected gift or benefit.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun In Louisiana, a trifling present given to customers by tradesmen; a gratuity.
  • noun A tip or gratuity.
  • noun Anything obtained gratuitously or unexpectedly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small gift (especially one given by a merchant to a customer who makes a purchase)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Louisiana French, from American Spanish la ñapa, the gift : la, the (from Latin illa, feminine of ille, that, the; see al- in Indo-European roots) + ñapa (variant of llapa, gift of a little something extra, bonus, from Quechua, from yapay, to give more).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Cajun French, from Spanish la ñapa variant of yapa, from Quechua yapay.

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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 2010

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

    License Invoked Asprin, Robert 2001

  • 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.

    Cathleen Falsani: Thanks(giving) Be to God Cathleen Falsani 2011

  • 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.

    Cathleen Falsani: Thanks(giving) Be to God Cathleen Falsani 2011

  • 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.

    Cathleen Falsani: Thanks(giving) Be to God Cathleen Falsani 2011

  • 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.

    Cathleen Falsani: Thanks(giving) Be to God Cathleen Falsani 2011

  • 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." Ann Althouse 2007

  • 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 Slimbolala 2005

  • 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 Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

  • 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 2010

Comments

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  • Somewhere between the "baker's dozen" and a bribe.

    December 4, 2006

  • "Call it a little lagniappe, goodbuddy, that’s Duane Marvy’s way o’ doin’ thangs."

    - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1973

    December 7, 2006

  • 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.

    March 14, 2007

  • Wow! This is derived from a Quechua term!

    October 29, 2007

  • Really? Who'd have guessed....

    October 29, 2007

  • "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)

    February 3, 2009

  • like swag, right?

    September 6, 2009