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periwinkle.

Any of several evergreen plants of the genus Vinca with blue or white flowers.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpɛɹ.ɪˌwɪŋ.kəl/UK, US
  1. Any of several evergreen plants of the genus Vinca with blue or white flowers.

  2. Similar plants of genus Catharanthus.

  3. A color with bluish and purplish hues, somewhat light.

Where this word comes from

Diminutive of Middle English perwinke, from Old English perfince, perwince (compare Middle High German berwinke), from Latin pervinca (compare French pervenche, Italian pervinca).

adj/ˈpɛɹ.ɪˌwɪŋ.kəl/UK, US
  1. Of pale bluish purple colour.

Where this word comes from

Diminutive of Middle English perwinke, from Old English perfince, perwince (compare Middle High German berwinke), from Latin pervinca (compare French pervenche, Italian pervinca).

noun/ˈpɛɹ.ɪˌwɪŋ.kəl/UK, US
  1. A mollusk of family Littorinidae.

  2. A caddisfly larva.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English [Term?], alteration of *pinewinkle (compare English dialectal pennywinkle), from Old English pīnewincle, compound of Latin pīna (“kind of mussel”), itself from Ancient Greek πίνη (pínē), variant of πίννα (pínna, “mussel”)) and Old English wincel (“corner”) (compare dialectal Danish vinkel (“snail shell”)). More at winch and wink.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.