Vanilla is the sweet flavour from a tropical pod, classic in ice cream. Vanilla extract, a vanilla pod, vanilla ice cream.
It is the second most expensive spice after saffron, because the orchid must be pollinated by hand outside Mexico, where its natural pollinator does not live. Vanilla also means plain or ordinary, from the plainness of the ice cream. Note that the Spanish means a little pod.
1nounvanillaA sweet flavour from a tropical pod.
“Add a teaspoon of vanilla to the cake mixture for a sweet smell.”
Patternvanilla + noun (ice cream, essence, pod) · a hint of vanilla · vanilla flavour
2adjectiveplainPlain or ordinary.
“The free app is the vanilla version, without any of the extra features.”
vanilla is a flavouring.
VANilla → the ice cream VAN's first flavour
The ice cream van comes down the street, and the first thing everyone asks for is vanilla: plain, sweet and white.
hooks ontovan
Spanish vainilla is a diminutive of vaina, a pod, from Latin vagina, a sheath.
Spanish
vainilla
English, today
vanilla
Built from
Borrowed from Spanish vainilla. Spanish vainilla, a diminutive form of vaina (“pod”). "Plain" senses derive from the perceived plainness of vanilla ice cream.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in In the Kitchen