violets

Noun

violet (plural violets)

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.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 160

   Synonyms:

   rooster

2. (figuratively) 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.’1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 13
3. The color of most violets; the colour evoked by the shortest visible wavelengths between 380 and 435 nm, an additive tertiary colour.
4. Clothes and (ecclesiastical) vestments of such a colour.
5. (perfumes) The characteristic scent of V. odorata.
6. (UK, dialectal) Synonym of onion (“vegetable”).

   Synonyms:

   onion

See all 14 meanings of violet