mignon

What it means

1. Small and cute; pretty in a delicate way; dainty.

   Exactly what my grandfather says," Dorothy retorted, fun flashing in that mignon face.

   1911 September 29, Marcin Barner, “Britz of Headquarters”, in The Branford Opinion

   5 more examples

   "Will you not wear these to-morrow?" said the King, offering one pair to Madame de Merœur; then, turning to her sister, he added, "I only hope yours are small enough for those mignon hands."

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 127

   It was the deep-blue, dreaming, haughty eyes of "Miladi" that he was bringing back to memory, not the brown mignon face that had been so late close to his in the light of the moon.

   1867, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], “Cigarette en Condottiera”, in Under Two Flags: A Story of the Household and the Desert. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 194

   Or failing that, it must be sweet to be a famous beauty, a golden-haired divinity, like that fashionable enchantress whom she had seen often on the boulevards and in the Champs-Elysées—a mignon face, a figure delicate to fragility, almost buried amidst the luxury of a matchless set of sables, seated in the lightest and most elegant of victorias, behind a pair of thoroughbred blacks.

   [1884], [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “‘And it brought forth Wild Grapes’”, in Ishmael: […], volume II, London: John and Robert Maxwell, […], →OCLC, page 119

   What she looked at was an unset miniature of a young girl, with a wealth of darkest brown hair, powdered to a gray, and a little straight nose with just a suggestion of a tilt to it, giving the mignon face an expression of pride that the rest of the countenance by no means aided.

   1899, Paul Leicester Ford, Janice Meredith: A Story of the American Revolution, volume 1, Dodd, Mead & Company, page 64

   Starting a dance can be as fortuitous as its termination: a very short, mignon girl asks a tall guy to dance with her, then drops him a moment later without a word.

   1987, Persistence of Vision: The Journal of the Film Faculty of the City University of New York, numbers 5-8, page 68

In a sentence

"Will you not wear these to-morrow?" said the King, offering one pair to Madame de Merœur; then, turning to her sister, he added, "I only hope yours are small enough for those mignon hands."

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 127

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*men-“to think”
2. Proto-Germanic*minjō“affectionate thought, care”
3. Frankish*minnju“love, friendship, affection, memory”
4. Old Frenchmignon“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”
5. Middle Frenchmignon“lover, darling, favourite”
6. Frenchmignon
7. Englishmignon

From French mignon, from Middle French mignon (“lover, darling, favourite”), from Old French mignon (“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”), from Frankish *minnju (“love, friendship, affection, memory”), from Proto-Germanic *minjō (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think”). Cognate with Old High German minna (“love, care, affection, desire, memory”), Old Saxon minnia (“love”). More at mind. Compare Dutch minnen (“to love”). Doublet of minion.

First known use: 18th–19th c.