mignon
/mɪnˈjɑn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.66 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One of the court favourites of Henry III of France.
name
A left tributary of the Sèvre Niortaise in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.
name
A female given name from French.
name
A surname from French.
Example Sentences
- ""Will you not wear these to-morrow?" said the King, offering one pair to Madame de Merœur; then, turning to her sister, he added, "I only hope yours are small enough for those mignon hands.""
- "It was the deep-blue, dreaming, haughty eyes of "Miladi" that he was bringing back to memory, not the brown mignon face that had been so late close to his in the light of the moon."
- "Or failing that, it must be sweet to be a famous beauty, a golden-haired divinity, like that fashionable enchantress whom she had seen often on the boulevards and in the Champs-Elysées—a mignon face, a figure delicate to fragility, almost buried amidst the luxury of a matchless set of sables, seated in the lightest and most elegant of victorias, behind a pair of thoroughbred blacks."
- "What she looked at was an unset miniature of a young girl, with a wealth of darkest brown hair, powdered to a gray, and a little straight nose with just a suggestion of a tilt to it, giving the mignon face an expression of pride that the rest of the countenance by no means aided."
- "Exactly what my grandfather says," Dorothy retorted, fun flashing in that mignon face."
- "Starting a dance can be as fortuitous as its termination: a very short, mignon girl asks a tall guy to dance with her, then drops him a moment later without a word."
Etymology
From French mignon, from Middle French mignon (“lover, darling, favourite”), from Old French mignon (“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”), from Frankish *minnju (“love, friendship, affection, memory”), from Proto-Germanic *minjō (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think”). Cognate with Old High German minna (“love, care, affection, desire, memory”), Old Saxon minnia (“love”). More at mind. Compare Dutch minnen (“to love”). Doublet of minion.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /mɪnˈjɑn/
- British English: /ˈmɪnjɒn/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.