Bouquet

How to spell bouquet

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bouquet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bouquet mean?

1. nounAn arranged bunch of cut flowers given as a gift or carried for decoration.
2. nounThe characteristic smell or fragrance of a wine, especially as it matures.

Bouquet in a sentence

• The bride carried a small white bouquet down the aisle.

• The sommelier praised the rich bouquet of the aged red.

• He ordered a bouquet of roses for their anniversary.

• This vintage has a distinct bouquet of cherry and oak.

Where does bouquet come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from French bouquet, meaning 'a little cluster of flowers', which itself was a diminutive of the older Norman French bosquet, 'a small wood or thicket'. Trace it back further and you reach the Old French bosc and bois, words for 'wood' or 'grove', so a bouquet was originally imagined as a tiny gathering of growth, like a miniature copse held in the hand. English adopted the term in the late 1600s, keeping the French spelling intact, which is exactly why the silent ending trips writers up: the '-quet' is pronounced 'kay', not 'ket'. By the 1800s the word had also stretched to describe the pleasant smell rising from wine, treating the aroma as a bundle of scents. The same wooded root survives in 'bosky', an old English adjective for shrubby or tree-covered land.

How the word is built

• bouq- (from Old French bosc/bois: wood, thicket)
• -et (diminutive: a little cluster)