having the aroma or fragrance of rose water.
affectedly delicate, nice, or fine; sentimental.
a Victorian novelist with a genteel, rose-water style.
scented water used as a perfume and in cooking, made by the distillation of rose petals or by impregnation with oil of roses
( as modifier )
rose-water scent
(modifier) elegant or delicate, esp excessively so
First recorded in 1350–1400
First recorded in 1655–65
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It’s like a rose water and cardamom flavor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025
So Mr Jain decided to turn his roses into rose water and rose oil.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2023
In another scene, they dab Mama’s rose water on their wrists and imagine “that this is what Cleopatra or Nefertiti must have smelled like.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2023
A haldi, or turmeric, ceremony is a pre-wedding ritual in which the bride and groom are slathered with turmeric paste, which is usually made with sandalwood powder, milk or rose water.
From Salon ● Apr. 9, 2022
At lunch she hiked miles within the walled city, around curls and corners of tiny alleyways, up secretive staircases, along crowded thoroughfares smelling of oranges and rose water and damp, mopped stone.
From "Habibi" by Naomi Shihab Nye
Take a third of a pound of sugar, dissolve it with half an ounce of rose-water on a quiet fire, then take it up.
From Slate ● Nov. 16, 2011
And modern travelers in the East still find it a custom for visitors to be sprinkled with rose-water, or their head, face and beard "anointed with olive oil."
From The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors Or, Christianity Before Christ by Graves, Kersey
"I beg you will not talk such nursery-maid's nonsense to me, May," returned her aunt, sprinkling some rose-water on her pocket-handkerchief, and dabbing her wet cheeks with it.
From That Unfortunate Marriage, Vol. 3 by Trollope, Frances Eleanor
Mix a pint of milk with a cupful of cream, a heaping tablespoonful of ground rice, two tablespoonfuls of rose-water, and half a cupful of sugar.
From The Myrtle Reed Cook Book by Reed, Myrtle
The rose-water is not very clear, but it has much of the overpowering, lingering odour of attar of roses.
From Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I (of 2) Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to the Nestorian Rayahs by Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
