lavender means having a pale purple colour. It carries an Arena rating of 1396, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, lavender ranks #2,181 of 17,052 for Most Vivid Words, #2,893 of 17,052 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,007 of 17,052 for Most Elegant Words, #3,343 of 17,052 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
lavender is pronounced /ˈlæv.ən.dəː/.
Why “lavender” is a great word
A pale purple hue reminiscent of the flowers of the lavender plant, or pertaining to lesbian feminism or the wider LGBTQ+ community. From Anglo-French lavendre, Old French lavendre, from Medieval Latin lavendula, likely from Latin lividus ("bluish") or lavare ("to wash"), referring to its use in washing and perfumes, first attested in English c. 1300. Unlike "violet," which names a spectral color or a deeper, blue-leaning purple, lavender is a specific, dusty tint freighted with cultural memory; and unlike the noun "lavender," which is the bushy, fragrant herb itself, this adjective extends from petal to politics. It is the soft bruise of twilight on a chalk wall, the faint bloom on a widow’s dried wedding linen, the quiet banner of a parade moving through history—a shade that holds both the ghost of a fragrance and the solidity of an identity.
adj
- Having a pale purple colour.
- Pertaining to LGBT people and rights.
- Pertaining to lesbian feminism; opposing heterosexism.
name
- A surname.
- A female given name from English.
- An unincorporated community in Floyd County, Georgia, United States, named after a storekeeper.
- An unincorporated community in Kittitas County, Washington, United States, named after John Lavender.
- A subzone of Kallang, Singapore.
noun
- Any of a group of European plants, genus, Lavandula, of the mint family.
- A pale bluish purple colour, like that of the lavender flower.
- A kind of film stock used for creating positive prints from negatives as part of the process of duplicating the negatives.
verb
- To decorate or perfume with lavender.e.g.“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.”
Words closest in meaning
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