bouquet
(buːˈkeɪ, ˈbuːkeɪ)
Also boquet.
[a. Fr. bouquet orig. ‘little wood’ cognate with Pr. bosquet, It boschetto dim. of bosco wood. cf. busket.]
1. a. A bunch of flowers, a nosegay; also fig.
| 1716–8 Lady M. W. Montague Lett. I. xxxii. 111 A large bouquet of jewels, made like natural flowers. 1768 Sterne Sent. Journ. (1778) II. 144 He had wrapt [paper] round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together. 1785 T. Warton Notes on Milton (L.) May-buskets; if busket be not there the French bouquet, now become English. 1791 Burke Corr. (1844) III. 278 The flowers..I..had seen..tied up in one bouquet. a 1845 Hood Sniffing a Birthd. x, No flowery garlands—no bouquet. 1880 O. W. Holmes in Scribner's Mag. XXI. 157 I'm a florist in verse and what would people say If I came to a banquet without my bouquet? [Cf. Fr. sense, ‘petite pièce de vers pour une fête’.] |
b. fig. A compliment, praise; phr. to throw bouquets, to pay compliments.
| 1904 Journalist 28 May 89 We do not wish to say ‘I told you so’, or to ‘throw any bouquets’ in our own direction. 1907 N. Munro Daft Days xxiii. 203 I've never done throwing bouquets at myself about it ever since. 1955 Times 4 May 9/6 The union would inevitably receive their share of the brickbats and bouquets. |
2. The perfume exhaled from wine.
| 1846 French Dom. Cookery 320 Negligence in the filling of the casks..will destroy the bouquet. c 1865 in Circ. Sc. I. 353/1 The perfume, or ‘bouquet,’ is something different from the odour of wine. 1873 Lytton K. Chillingly iv. vii, Lifting his glass to his lips, [he] voluptuously inhaled its bouquet. 1876 Bartholow Mat. Med. (1879) 350 Bouquet is that quality of wine which salutes the nose. |
3. transf. a. A bunch of flavouring herbs. Also bouquet garni [F., ‘garnished bouquet’] (see quots.). b. A large flight of rockets, as the close of a firework display. c. The flight of a multitude of pheasants breaking covert from the central point at which the beaters meet; this central spot itself.
| 1846 French Dom. Cookery 41 A garnished bouquet is when thyme, fennel, and bay are added to the parsley and onions. 1852 F. Bishop Illustr. London Cookery Bk. 408 Bouquet, a bunch of parsley and scallions tied up to put in soups, &c. Bouquet garni, or Assaisonné, the same, with the addition of cloves or aromatic herbs. 1875 ‘Stonehenge’ Brit. Sports i. i. vii. §4. 104 The shooters are now collected to the spot to which all the beaters congregate, termed the bouquet. 1879 Times 2 June, The great bouquet of rockets being particularly fine. 1960 Woman 3 Dec. 42 Classic ingredients of a bouquet garni are half a bay leaf, three or four long-stemmed sprigs of parsley, and a sprig of thyme. |