bouquet

plural bouquets

1. collectiveAn arrangement or bunch of cut flowers; a nosegay.

   For my birthday I received two bouquets.

   Synonyms: arrangement

2. A decoratively arranged bunch of something.

   Each table was adorned with a bouquet of giant balloons.

   1 more example

   Aunt Cass rearranged the bouquet of spoons in the little vase on the table.

   2005, Mildred M. Jeffrey, Walking the Cliffs, page 10

3. The scent of a particular wine.

   This Bordeaux has an interesting bouquet.

4. The middle note of a perfume.

   The remarkable flower bouquet lasts for hours until it dissolves into a sweet vanilla smell.

5. A compliment or expression of praise.

   1 more example

   Since his early death in 1953, a cult, small and select, has grown up around him […]. This coterie maintains that Burns was a writer of near transcendent genius […] whose first novel received enormous bouquets from the critics but who was hounded to death by those same critics when they learned he was a fag.

   1977 August 20, Robert Etherington, “John Horne Burns and His Enemies”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 10

6. mathematicsA bouquet of circles.
7. card gamesThe reserve of cards in the game of Flower Garden and variations.
8. cartomancyThe ninth Lenormand card, sometimes called Flowers instead.
9. collectivehobbiesA group of pheasants.

   if he is fortunate enough to escape tripping over the multitude of timid hares, or avert an avalanche of feathers when, a bouquet of pheasants fall down upon his devoted head.

   1878, Lord William Pitt Lennox, Fashion Then and Now, Chapman and Hall, page 261

   2 more examples

   These days were not concluded with the vast bouquet of pheasants, some escaping to furnish sport for next year, others going off with their legs hanging down, and perhaps the majority blown to fragments and falling a tangled mass of bones, blood, and feathers; but there was the exercise, the talent of the dogs, the keen appetite, and far more excitement than we obtain under the present system.

   1874, Thomas Pearce, The "Idstone" Papers, page 236

   Whether it was everyday chores around the farm, taking in abandoned animals, or, most recently, tending to a bouquet of pheasants and wild birds, she looked after all living things with a nurturing zeal.

   2024 December 9, Southern Utah Mortuary, “Rita Brower Obituary”, in Legacy.com, archived from the original on 01 Aug 2026

plural Bouquets

1. A surname from French.