vanilla
Pluralvanillas (some meanings)
Pluralvanillas (some meanings)
- 1The distinctive fragrant flavor that is characteristic of extract drawn from vanilla beans.
The cream was rich with vanilla and a touch of honey.
A faint vanilla note lingered in the freshly baked sponge.
- 2A flavoring in the form of an extract drawn from the seed pods of the vanilla plant.
A few drops of vanilla gave the frosting a warm aroma.
Bakers often pay a premium for high-quality vanilla.
- 3Plain, conventional, and lacking imagination or excitement.
Like a movie so predictable you can guess the ending in the first five minutes.
The album was competent but vanilla, with no risks taken anywhere.
Critics called the redesign disappointingly vanilla.
Similarbland, plain, boring, unexciting, dull
Oppositeexciting, adventurous, daring, bold
Note
Unlike the technical sense, this one passes judgment: competent but vanilla, disappointingly vanilla. It compares freely, as in more vanilla and most vanilla. Keep it apart from the "default" sense, where vanilla neutrally describes an unmodified product. Here the same plainness counts as a failing of imagination.
- 4A tropical climbing orchid of the genus Vanilla, especially Vanilla planifolia, whose podlike fruit yields the extract used to flavor food and scent perfumes.
The vanilla flowers for only a single day, so pollination must happen quickly.
Growers train each vanilla along wires to make harvesting easier.
Note
The plant takes its name from its fruit. Spanish vainilla is a diminutive of vaina, "pod", so the orchid is in effect called "little pod". The pod is where the value lies, and Harry E. Wedeck's Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs (1961) names Madagascar as the main source of the spice. As a plant name it is countable, with the plural vanillas. The genus name is capitalized: Vanilla planifolia.
- 5The pod-like fruit, or bean, produced by the vanilla plant.
The chef slit a vanilla lengthwise to release its fragrant seeds.
Workers harvest the green vanillas by hand before curing them in the sun.
- 6Relating to or flavored with vanilla.
He ordered a vanilla milkshake with an extra shot of syrup.
The perfume opened with a warm vanilla base.
Note
The literal adjective, set apart from the figurative ones by what it describes: a taste, a scent, a shade. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004) gives a folder that is vanilla in its color, which borrows from the yellowish-white shade. Context does the sorting. A vanilla milkshake tastes of the bean, while a vanilla version of something is the plain, default meaning, a sense that grew from how ordinary vanilla ice cream seemed.
- 7Standard or default, without modifications or extra features.
The team deployed a vanilla Linux build before adding their custom tools.
Most users start with the vanilla setup and tweak it later.
Similarstock, standard, plain, basic, unmodified
Note
A retronym: once modified versions existed, the original needed a name. Vanilla supplied it, drawing on the same plainness behind the slang word for non-kinky people. Programmers put it straight before the thing named, as in vanilla JavaScript or vanilla Linux, to mean the base product with nothing added. In this sense the word is neutral. Vanilla here marks a baseline, not a complaint.
- 8Of sexual preferences: conventional and not involving kink or BDSM.
He considers his preferences fairly vanilla compared with his partner's.
The couple described themselves as vanilla and happy that way.
Similarconventional, tame, traditional
Oppositekinky, adventurous, unconventional
Note
In sexual contexts the adjective sits opposite kinky: a vanilla kind of guy, a vanilla woman, an uncharacteristically vanilla threesome. It is gradable, so tastes can be fairly vanilla or more vanilla. The clinical counterpart is normophilic, while vanilla is the everyday word. It describes tastes and acts, whereas the noun labels the person.
- 9
- 10An artificially produced substitute for natural vanilla extract, chiefly vanillin made from wood pulp byproducts or from petrochemicals.
Manufacturers rely on synthetic vanilla because it costs far less than the natural extract.
Much of the vanilla in processed food is actually vanillin made from petrochemicals.
Similarvanillin
- 11The original, unmodified version of a video game, without any player-made modifications.
He beat the game on vanilla before installing the popular overhaul mod.
The server runs vanilla so that everyone plays on equal footing.
Similarstock
Note
Gamers use it as a bare mass noun, with no article: you play on vanilla, and a server runs vanilla. Its opposite is a modded game, and stock is a close synonym. It is the gaming end of the "default, unmodified" adjective. Since it is slang, it belongs to player talk rather than formal writing about games.
- 12A person whose sexual tastes are conventional, without interest in fetishism or kink.
As a self-described vanilla, she found the workshop more curious than appealing.
The group welcomes both vanillas and people with more adventurous tastes.
Note
Kink communities borrowed the flavor as a label. All the "plain" senses come from the perceived plainness of vanilla ice cream, the default scoop. As a countable noun it names a person and takes a plural, so a group can welcome vanillas. Because it is slang, it suits casual talk more than formal writing. The "not kinky" adjective describes tastes or acts rather than labeling people.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Spanish 'vainilla', a diminutive of 'vaina' ('pod'). The 'plain' senses developed from the perceived plainness of vanilla ice cream.