frangipani

/ˌfrændʒɪˈpɑːni/

frangipani noun: any of several tropical American shrubs and trees of the genus Plumeria, having fragrant, showy, funnel-shaped flowers of a wide range of colours from creamy to red. Also the alternative form of frangipane.

Image: Aathavan jaffna, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

frangipani (countable and uncountable, plural frangipanis or frangipani)

Any of several tropical American shrubs and trees of the genus Plumeria, having fragrant, showy, funnel-shaped flowers of a wide range of colours from creamy to red.

Synonyms:

plumeria
A flower of these plants.
- The aroma given off by flowers has an aphrodisiac effect, especially on women. This is so particularly in the case of lilies of the valley, gardenia, frangipani, and henna.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 98
- I casually let this information drop as our concierge drives us through the resort in a buggy, a frangipani flower tucked behind his ear. He promises to fix the bug problem and drops us off at the lobby.2022 November 26, Virginia Feito, “Sweating Through a Honeymoon in Paradise”, in The New York Times
A perfume obtained from this plant or imitating the odour of its flowers.

Also used as

frangipani is also the alternative form of frangipane.

frangipani meaning in Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian and Thai

frangipani in Tagalog

any of several tropical American shrubs and trees of the genus Plumeria: kalatsutsi

frangipani in Malay

any of several tropical American shrubs and trees of the genus Plumeria: kemboja

frangipani in Indonesian

any of several tropical American shrubs and trees of the genus Plumeria: kemboja

frangipani in Thai

any of several tropical American shrubs and trees of the genus Plumeria: ลั่นทม lân-tom, ลีลาวดี lii-laa-wá-dii

More languagesFewer languages

frangipani in Myanmar: တရုတ်စံကား ta.rutcamka:

Synonyms of frangipani

plumeria

Forms of frangipani

plural	frangipanis
plural	frangipani
alternative form	frangipane

Origin of frangipani

From French frangipane, from Italian frangipane. Possibly named after Muzio Frangipane, a 16th-century marquess of the Italian noble Frangipani family, who invented a plumeria-scented perfume. The name Frangipane derives from frangere (“to break”) + pane (“bread”), a reference to the family's distribution of bread in time of famine.

Words formed from frangipani

native frangipani

Words that rhyme with frangipani

Questions about frangipani

What does frangipani mean?: Frangipani means any of several tropical American shrubs and trees of the genus Plumeria, having fragrant, showy, funnel-shaped flowers of a wide range of colours from creamy to red.
What is frangipani in Tagalog?: Frangipani in Tagalog is kalatsutsi. See Frangipani meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is frangipani?: Frangipani is a noun.
How do you pronounce frangipani?: Frangipani is pronounced /ˌfrændʒɪˈpɑːni/.
What is the plural of frangipani?: The plural of frangipani is frangipanis.

Words near frangipani in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: frangipani (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “frangipani.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/frangipani. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.