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''violet'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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Primary

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''violet'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125123911-00-⌔

violet - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

violet (plural violets)

  • A plant or flower of the genus Viola, especially the fragrant Viola odorata; (inexact) similar - looking plants and flowers.
    • ✤ Synonym: (historical US) rooster
    • ✤ Refreshed by their cooling bath of evening dew, the violets and other nocturnal flowers emitted a pleasant fragrance over the fields, but from the bogs and the rivulets came up now and then damp, penetrating gusts, that sent an icy chill through me.1
    • ✤ Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth century philosopher and occultist, states that coriander, valerian, and violet are love producing herbs.2
  • (figurative) A person thought to resemble V. odorata, especially in its beauty and delicacy.
    • ✤ ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘you are looking at a crushed violet, a spent egg, a squeezed tube.’3
  • The color of most violets; the colour evoked by the shortest visible wavelengths between 380 and 435 nm, an additive tertiary colour.
    • ✤ violet:
    • ✤ web violet:
  • Clothes and (ecclesiastical) vestments of such a colour.
  • (perfumes) The characteristic scent of V. odorata.
  • (UK dialect) Synonym of onion (“vegetable”).

Adjective

violet (comparative violeter, superlative violetest)

  • Of a violet colour.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English violet, vyolet, vyolette, from Old French violette, from Latin viola (“violet”) + -ette. Cognate with Lithuanian violetinė (“purple, violet”) and Spanish violeta (“purple, violet”).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /ˈvaɪ.ə.lət/, /ˈvaɪ.lət/
  • Audio (Received Pronunciation): 🔊
  • Hyphenation: vi‧o‧let, vio‧let
  • Rhymes: -aɪlət

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1886, Peter Christen Asbj&oslash￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 160: ↩

  2. 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 68: ↩

  3. 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 13: ↩

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Secondary

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