frangipani

American  

[fran-juh-pan-ee, -pah-nee] / ˌfræn dʒəˈpæn i, -ˈpɑ ni /

noun

plural

frangipanis, frangipani

1. a tree or shrub of the genus Plumeria, especially Plumeria rubra, or the flowers from this tree.

2. a perfume prepared from or imitating the scent of the Plumeria rubra flower.

---

frangipani British  

/ ˌfrændʒɪˈpɑːnɪ /

noun

1. any tropical American apocynaceous shrub of the genus Plumeria , esp P. rubra , cultivated for its waxy typically white or pink flowers, which have a sweet overpowering scent

2. a perfume prepared from this plant or resembling the odour of its flowers

3. an Australian evergreen tree, Hymenosporum flavum , with large fragrant yellow flowers: family Pittosporaceae

---

Etymology

Origin of frangipani

First recorded in 1860–65; from French frangipane, after Marquis Muzio Frangipane or Frangipani a 16th-century Italian nobleman, the supposed inventor of the perfume

Example Sentences

The piece, a frangipani branch from his grandmother’s former garden in the neighborhood, will be planted in the museum’s garden, crossing temporal and spatial boundaries between the institution and the artist.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 4, 2025

Most of them, made supine by arrack cocktails and the prevailing air of lassitude, spent the day just slumbering and perspiring in the shade of flowering frangipani trees.

From Washington Post • Dec. 8, 2016

They were surrounded by massive trees: cannonball and eucalyptus, bottlebrush and frangipani.

From The New Yorker • Jun. 3, 2013

The Pacific is so beautiful, the sunrises and sunsets, the stars and the smell in that vast ocean, the blue lagoons, the scent from all the frangipani.

From New York Times • Feb. 11, 2011

The tropics will intoxicate you with the sweetness of frangipani flowers and lay you down with the sting of a viper, with hardly room to breathe in between.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver