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lavender

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Lavender

English

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A number of lavender plants
A small field of lavenders

Etymology

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Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *(s)leh₃y-
Proto-Indo-European *(s)lih₃-wó-der.
Proto-Italic *slīwēō
Latin līveō
Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der.
Proto-Italic *-iðos
Latin -idus
Medieval Latin lividusder.
▲
Medieval Latin lavōinflu.
Medieval Latin lavendulader.
Old French lavendrebor.
Middle English lavendre
English lavender

    From Middle English lavendre, from Anglo-Norman lavendre (French lavande), from Medieval Latin lavendula, possibly from Latin lividus (“bluish”), but influenced by lavō (“to wash”) due to the use of lavender in washing clothes.

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    lavender (countable and uncountable, plural lavenders)

    2. Any of a group of European plants, genus, Lavandula, of the mint family.
    3. A pale bluish purple or violet colour, like that of the lavender flower.
      lavender:  
      web lavender:  
    4. (film, historical, uncountable) A kind of film stock used for creating positive prints from negatives as part of the process of duplicating the negatives.

    Hyponyms

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    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    See also

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    Adjective

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    lavender (comparative more lavender, superlative most lavender)

    1. Having a pale purple colour.
    2. (originally US) Pertaining to LGBT people and rights.
      • 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 81:
        “Now in here,” their guide, sweating dark tentacles into his tab collar, briefed them, “you are going to see the members of the third sex, the lavender crowd this city by the Bay is so justly famous for.
      • 1981 August 22, Nancy Walker, “Still Coming Out, After All These Years”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 6, page 11:
        My sother (significant other) and I have been together almost nineteen years. Exactly half of the usual wedding vows taken traditionally by non-lavender couples — for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, — have been characteristic of our relationship.
    3. (politics) Pertaining to lesbian feminism; opposing heterosexism. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    Verb

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    lavender (third-person singular simple present lavenders, present participle lavendering, simple past and past participle lavendered)

    1. (transitive) To decorate or perfume with lavender.
      • 1986, Katherine Gibson Fougera, With Custer's Cavalry, page 47:
        Short shafts of dying sunlight mingled with the deepening grey, lavendering the horizon, and all nature seemed to hush as though waiting to welcome the night.

    Further reading

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    Anagrams

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    Middle English

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    Etymology 1

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    Borrowed from Old French lavandier, lavandiere, from Medieval Latin lavandārius.

    Alternative forms

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    Pronunciation

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    • IPA(key): /lavənˈdeːr/, /ˈlavəndər/, /lau̯nˈdeːr/, /ˈlau̯ndər/

    Noun

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    lavender (plural lavenderes)

    1. A washer; one (especially a woman) who washes clothes.
    2. (euphemistic) A woman employed in prostitution or who has loose morals.
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    Descendants
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    • English: launder
    • Scots: launer
    References
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    Etymology 2

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    Noun

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    lavender

    1. alternative form of lavendre
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