Etymology Inherited from Middle English violet, vyolet, vyolette, from Old French violette, from Latin viola (“violet”) + -ette. Cognate with Lithuanian violetinė (“purple, violet”) and Spanish violeta (“purple, violet”).
1
A plant or flower of the genus Viola, especially the fragrant Viola odorata; (inexact) similar-looking plants and flowers.
Refreshed by their cooling bath of evening dew, the violets and other nocturnal flowers emitted a pleasant fragrance over the fields, but from the bogs and the rivulets came up now and then damp, penetrating gusts, that sent an icy chill through me.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 160:
Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth century philosopher and occultist, states that coriander, valerian, and violet are love producing herbs.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 68:
2
Figuratively A person thought to resemble V. odorata, especially in its beauty and delicacy.
‘Tom,’ he said, ‘you are looking at a crushed violet, a spent egg, a squeezed tube.’1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 13:
3
The color of most violets; the colour evoked by the shortest visible wavelengths between 380 and 435 nm, an additive tertiary colour.
4
Clothes and (ecclesiastical) vestments of such a colour.
Etymology Inherited from Middle English violet, vyolet, vyolette, from Old French violette, from Latin viola (“violet”) + -ette. Cognate with Lithuanian violetinė (“purple, violet”) and Spanish violeta (“purple, violet”).