mignonette

plural mignonettes · alternative obsolete mignonnette

1. countableuncountableA plant, Reseda odorata, having greyish-green flowers with orange-coloured stamens, and exhaling a delicious fragrance. In Africa it is a low shrub, but further north it is usually an annual herb.First known use early 18th c.

   These rooms were on a level with the apartments of our friends Bows and Costigan next door at No. 4; and by reaching over the communicating leads, Grady could command the mignonette-box which bloomed in Bows’s window.

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 43, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   1 more example

   After amusing herself for a brief time with picking to pieces some mignonette which filled a box on the window-sill, Marie threw the flowers from her, and exclaimed,—"And here we are seated together, as we used to talk away half the night in Italy. Good Heavens! how we are altered!"

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 2

   Synonyms: reseda

2. countableuncountableA mignonette tree (Lawsonia inermis), source of the dye henna.
3. countableuncountableA mignonette vine.
4. countableuncountableA greyish-green colour, like that of the flowers of the plant.
5. abbreviationcountableuncountableShort for mignonette sauce

comparative more mignonette · superlative most mignonette · alternative obsolete mignonnette

1. Of a greyish-green colour, like that of the flowers of the plant.

   She wore a dishabille of mignonette-green silk and bead-diapered head-dress that added several inches to her height […].

   1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 44

   Synonyms: reseda