vanilla

Noun · Adjective
US[vuh-nil-uh]/vəˈnɪlə/3 syllables
Synonyms: vanilla extract

Open English WordNet

Noun (3)

  1. any of numerous climbing plants of the genus Vanilla having fleshy leaves and clusters of large waxy highly fragrant white or green or topaz flowersType of orchid, orchidaceous plantKinds vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifoliaMember of genus Vanilla
  2. a flavoring prepared from vanilla beans macerated in alcohol (or imitating vanilla beans)Synonyms: vanilla extractType of flavorer, flavourerMade of vanilla bean
  3. a distinctive fragrant flavor characteristic of vanilla beansType of relish, flavor

Adjective (2)

  1. flavored with vanilla extract“he liked vanilla ice cream”
  2. plain and without any extras or adornments“the most common type of bond is the straight or plain vanilla bond”“the basic car is known as the vanilla version”Opposite fancySimilar plain
Word of the day · Oct 11About this word
expediteverb

What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz

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Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Va·nil′la noun

Origin: NL., fr. Sp. vainilla, dim. of Sp. vaina a sheath, a pod, L. vagina; because its grains, or seeds, are contained in little pods.

1. Botany A genus of climbing orchidaceous plants, natives of tropical America.

2. The long podlike capsules of Vanilla planifolia, and Vanilla claviculata, remarkable for their delicate and agreeable odor, for the volatile, odoriferous oil extracted from them; also, the flavoring extract made from the capsules, extensively used in confectionery, perfumery, etc.

☞ As a medicine, vanilla is supposed to possess powers analogous to valerian, while, at the same time, it is far more grateful.

Cuban vanilla, a sweet-scented West Indian composite shrub (Eupatorium Dalea). — Vanilla bean, the long capsule of the vanilla plant. — Vanilla grass. Same as Holy grass, under Holy.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

vanilla

1.(Default flavour of ice cream in the US) Ordinary flavour, standard. When used of food, very often does not mean that the food is flavoured with vanilla extract! For example, "vanilla wonton soup" means ordinary wonton soup, as opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup. Applied to hardware and software, as in "Vanilla Version 7 Unix can't run on a vanilla PDP 11/34." Also used to orthogonalise chip nomenclature; for instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from a 74LS00, etc. This word differs from canonical in that the latter means "default", whereas vanilla simply means "ordinary". For example, when hackers go to a chinese restaurant, hot-and-sour wonton soup is the canonical wonton soup to get (because that is what most of them usually order) even though it isn't the vanilla wonton soup. [Jargon File]

(1994-11-04)

2.Snobol4 by Catspaw, Inc. for MS-DOS.

(ftp://cs.arizona.edu/snobol4/vanilla.arc).

(1992-02-05)

The Jargon File

vanilla adj.

[from the default flavor of ice cream in the U.S.] Ordinary flavor, standard. When used of food, very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla extract! For example, vanilla wonton soup means ordinary wonton soup, as opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup. Applied to hardware and software, as in “Vanilla Version 7 Unix can't run on a vanilla 11/34.” Also used to orthogonalize chip nomenclature; for instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from a 74LS00, etc. This word differs from canonical in that the latter means ‘default’, whereas vanilla simply means ‘ordinary’. For example, when hackers go on a great-wall, hot-and-sour soup is the canonical soup to get (because that is what most of them usually order) even though it isn't the vanilla (wonton) soup.

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