vanilla — ONAD

vanilla /vəˈnilə, vəˈnɪlə

▸ noun

1 a substance obtained from vanilla beans or produced artificially and used to flavor sweet foods or to impart a fragrant scent to cosmetic preparations:

[as modifier] vanilla ice cream.

▪ ice cream flavored with vanilla:

four scoops of vanilla with hot fudge sauce.

▪ [as modifier] of the yellowish-white color of vanilla ice cream:

a vanilla dress.

2 a tropical climbing orchid that has fragrant flowers and long podlike fruit.

Genus Vanilla, family Orchidaceae: many species, in particular V. planifolia, the chief commercial source of vanilla beans.

▪ (also vanilla bean or vanilla pod) the fruit of the vanilla plant which is cured and then either used in cooking or processed to extract an essence which is used for flavor and fragrance.

▸ adjective (also plain vanilla) informal having no special or extra features; ordinary or standard:

choosing plain vanilla technology wherever you can will save you money

the original, vanilla MP3 format is still the most commonly encountered form of the technology

they seem to be quite content in their plain vanilla domestic life.

– ORIGIN mid 17th century : from Spanish vainilla ‘pod’, diminutive of vaina ‘sheath, pod’, from Latin vagina ‘sheath’. The spelling change was due to association with French vanille.