mignon

See also: Mignon

English

WOTD – 30 January 2013, 30 January 2015

Etymology

From French mignon, from Middle French mignon (“lover, darling, favourite”), from Old French mignon (“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”), from Frankish *minnjo (“love, friendship, affection, memory”), from Proto-Germanic *minþijō, *mindijō (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men-, *mnā- (“to think”). Cognate with Old High German minnja (“love, care, affection, desire, memory”), Old Saxon minnea (“love”). More at mind. Compare Dutch minnen (“to love”). Doublet of minion.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪnjɒn/, /ˈmɪnjɑ̃/
• (US) IPA^(key): /mɪnˈjɑn/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (UK) -ɒn, (US) -ɑn

Adjective

mignon (comparative more mignon, superlative most mignon)

1. Small and cute; pretty in a delicate way; dainty.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 127:

     "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."

   • 1867, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], “Cigarette en Condottiera”, in Under Two Flags: A Story of the Household and the Desert. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 194:

     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.

   • [1884], [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “‘And it brought forth Wild Grapes’”, in Ishmael: […], volume II, London: John and Robert Maxwell, […], →OCLC, page 119:

     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.

   • 1899, Paul Leicester Ford, Janice Meredith: A Story of the American Revolution, volume 1, Dodd, Mead & Company, page 64:

     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.

   • 1911 September 29, Marcin Barner, “Britz of Headquarters”, in The Branford Opinion:

     Exactly what my grandfather says," Dorothy retorted, fun flashing in that mignon face.

   • 1987, Persistence of Vision: The Journal of the Film Faculty of the City University of New York, numbers 5-8, page 68:

     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.

   • 2002, Seçil Büker, “The Film Does not End with an Ecstatic Kiss”, in Deniz Kandiyoti, Ayşe Saktanber, editors, Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey, Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 161:

     Magazines dubbed her 'a girl for the salons', 'the pretty girl' of the Turkish cinema, perfectly suited to the role of a blonde, mignon girl who had been educated at the best schools. In later years she herself would say, 'I was cute and sweet, but unable to project the image of a sexy woman, […]

Noun

mignon (plural mignons)

1. (rare, obsolete) A cute or pretty person; a dandy; a pretty child. [18th–19th c.]
   • 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 264:

     “I wish the blow he dealt to that fine essenced mignon had beat his brains out.”

2. (historical) One of the court favourites of Henry III of France. [from 20th c.]
   • 2003, Louis Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, Harvard, published 2003, page 330:

     When the mignons, barefoot and clad in sacks with holes for their heads and feet, marched with Henry in a penitential procession, lashing their backs, one wit opined that they should have aimed their blows lower.

   • 2005, Rebecca Zorach, Blood, Milk, Ink, Gold, University of Chicago, published 2005, page 220:

     Many commentators claimed hyperbolically that, because of their outrageous fashions, it was difficult to tell whether the mignons were male or female.

Anagrams

• Monnig

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French mignon, from Old French mignon (“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”), from Frankish *minnjo (“love, friendship, affection, memory”), from Proto-Germanic *minþijō, *mindijō (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men-, *mnā- (“to think”). Cognate with Old High German minna (“love, care, affection, desire, memory”), Old Saxon minnia (“love”), Old Dutch minna (Dutch min). More at mind.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mi.ɲɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophone: Mignon

Adjective

mignon (feminine mignonne, masculine plural mignons, feminine plural mignonnes)

1. cute (of a baby, an animal, etc.)
2. cute (sexually attractive)

Synonyms

• joli

Derived terms

• filet mignon
• péché mignon
• troglodyte mignon

Descendants

• → English: mignon
• → Italian: mignon
• → Portuguese: mignon
• → Turkish: minyon

Noun

mignon m (plural mignons)

1. a small pastry

Further reading

• “mignon”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from French mignon.

Adjective

mignon (invariable)

1. mignon (small and dainty)

Further reading

• mignon in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from French mignon.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /mĩˈɲõ/ [mĩˈj̃õ]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /mĩˈɲõ/ [mĩˈj̃õ]
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /miˈɲõ/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /miˈɲõ/

Noun

mignon m (plural mignons)

1. (Brazil) Clipping of filé mignon.

Adjective

mignon m or f (plural mignons or mignon)

1. (Brazil) mignon (small and dainty)
2. (Brazil, slang) cute (sexually attractive)

Further reading

• “mignon”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2024

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French mignon.

Adjective

mignon m or n (feminine singular mignonă, masculine plural mignoni, feminine and neuter plural mignone)

1. cute

Declension

		singular				plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine		masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative- accusative	indefinite	mignon		mignonă		mignoni	mignone
	definite	mignonul		mignona		mignonii	mignonele
genitive- dative	indefinite	mignon		mignone		mignoni	mignone
	definite	mignonului		mignonei		mignonilor	mignonelor