violet

noun

1. 1

   A plant or flower of the genus Viola, especially the fragrant Viola odorata; (inexact) similar-looking plants and flowers.

   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.

   Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth century philosopher and occultist, states that coriander, valerian, and violet are love producing herbs.

2. 2

   figurativeA 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. 3

   The color of most violets; the colour evoked by the shortest visible wavelengths between 380 and 435 nm, an additive tertiary colour.

4. 4

   Clothes and (ecclesiastical) vestments of such a colour.

5. 5

   The characteristic scent of V. odorata.

6. 6

   Synonym of onion (“vegetable”).

adjective

1. 1

   Of a violet colour.

Forms

plural

violets

comparative

violeter

superlative

violetest