noun
- any chiefly low, stemless or leafy-stemmed plant of the genus Viola, having purple, blue, yellow, white, or variegated flowers.Compare violet family.
- any such plant except the pansy and the viola.
- the flower of any native, wild species of violet, as distinguished from the pansy: the state flower of Illinois, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
- any of various similar plants of other genera.
- reddish-blue, a color at the opposite end of the visible spectrum from red, an effect of light with a wavelength between 400 and 450 nm.
adjective
- of the color violet; reddish-blue: violet hats.
noun
- a female given name.
noun
- any of various temperate perennial herbaceous plants of the violaceous genus Viola, such as V. odorata (sweet (or garden) violet), typically having mauve or bluish flowers with irregular showy petals
- any other plant of the genus Viola, such as the wild pansy
- any of various similar but unrelated plants, such as the African violet
-
- any of a group of colours that vary in saturation but have the same purplish-blue hue. They lie at one end of the visible spectrum, next to blue; approximate wavelength range 445–390 nanometres
- (as adjective)a violet dress
- a dye or pigment of or producing these colours
- violet clothingdressed in violet
- shrinking violet informal a shy person
early 14c., small plant with purplish-blue flowers, from Old French violette, diminutive of viole “violet,” from Latin viola, cognate with Greek ion (see iodine), probably from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language. The color sense (late 14c.) developed from the flower.
n.
- The hue of the short-wave end of the visible spectrum, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 380 to 420 nanometers.
- Any of a group of colors, reddish-blue in hue, that may vary in lightness and saturation.
see shrinking violet.