different between dainty vs mignon

English

Etymology

From Middle English deynte, from Old French deintié, from Latin dignit?tem. Doublet of dignity.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?de?nti/
• Rhymes: -e?nti

Noun

dainty (plural dainties)

1. A delicacy (in taste).
   • 1791, William Cowper, The Odyssey of Homer
2. (obsolete) Esteem, honour.
3. (Canada, Prairies and northwestern Ontario) A fancy cookie, pastry, or square, typically homemade, served at a social event (usually plural).
4. (obsolete) An affectionate term of address.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ben Jonson to this entry?)

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

dainty (comparative daintier, superlative daintiest)

1. (obsolete) Excellent; valuable, fine.
2. Elegant; delicately small and pretty.
3. Fastidious and fussy, especially when eating.
   • 1623, Francis Bacon, An Advertisement touching an Holy War

Synonyms

• neat
• petite

Derived terms

• daintily
• daintiness

Translations

References

• “dainty” in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2004.

English

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 *minþij?, *mindij? (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men-, *mn?- (“to think”). Cognate with Old High German minnja (“love, care, affection, desire, memory”), Old Saxon minnea (“love”). More at mind. Compare also minion and Dutch minnen (“to love”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m?nj?n/, /?m?nj??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /m?n?j?n/

Adjective

mignon (comparative more mignon, superlative most mignon)

1. Small and cute; pretty in a delicate way; dainty.
   • 1867, Ouida, Under Two Flags: A Story of the Household and the Desert, Volume II, Chapman and Hall (1867), 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.

   • 1867, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Ishmael, John and Robert Maxwell (1867), 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 (1899), 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, Marcin Barner, "Britz of Headquarters", The Branford Opinion, 29 September 1911:

     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, Issues 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 Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey (eds. Deniz Kandiyoti & Ay?e Saktanber), Rutgers University Press (2002), ?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 2008, p. 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 2003, p. 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 2005, p. 220:

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

French

Etymology

From Middle French mignon, from Old French mignon (“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”), from Frankish *minnjo (“love, friendship, affection, memory”), from Proto-Germanic *minþij?, *mindij? (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men-, *mn?- (“to think”). Cognate with Old High German minnja (“love, care, affection, desire, memory”), Old Saxon minnea (“love”). More at mind.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mi.???/

Adjective

mignon (feminine singular 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

Descendants

• ? English: mignon
• ? Italian: mignon
• ? Portuguese: mignon

Noun

mignon m (plural mignons)

1. a small pastry

Further reading

• “mignon” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology

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.

Noun

mignon m (plural mignons)

1. Clipping of filé mignon.

Adjective

mignon (plural, comparable)

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

Further reading

• "mignon" in Michaelis On-Line Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (Michaelis Portuguese Language Brazilian Online Dictionary)

Romanian

Etymology

From French mignon.

Adjective

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

1. cute

Declension