mignon

comparative more mignon · superlative most mignon

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

plural mignons

1. obsoleterareA cute or pretty person; a dandy; a pretty child.First known use 18th–19th c.

   “I wish the blow he dealt to that fine essenced mignon had beat his brains out.”

   1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 264

   Synonyms: exquisite, fopling, barbermonger, beau, blade, blood, buck, carpet knight

2. historicalOne of the court favourites of Henry III of France.First known use 20th c.

   Many commentators claimed hyperbolically that, because of their outrageous fashions, it was difficult to tell whether the mignons were male or female.

   2005, Rebecca Zorach, Blood, Milk, Ink, Gold, University of Chicago, published 2005, page 220

   1 more example

   When the mignons, barefoot and clad in sacks with holes for their heads and feet, marched with Henry in a penitential procession, lashing their backs, one wit opined that they should have aimed their blows lower.

   2003, Louis Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, Harvard, published 2003, page 330

1. A left tributary of the Sèvre Niortaise in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.

plural Mignons

1. A female given name from French.

   "What will you call yourself? You aren't a Mignon or a Ninette, or anything-ette. […]

   2012, Carole DeSanti, The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 2012, →ISBN, page 93

   2 more examples

   'Yes,' said Mignon, and stretched out her hand for it, but they would not let her take it back.

   1984, Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus, Vintage, published 2006, →ISBN, page 150

   Surprisingly, Mignon Anderson, for all her innocence, was born into a theatrical family–in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 31,1892.

   2002, Anthony Slide, Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses, University Press of Kentucky, published 2002, →ISBN

2. A surname from French.