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• rose water
  rose water

  noun

  water tinctured with the essential oil of roses, used as a perfume and in cooking.
• rose-water
  rose-water

  adjective

  having the aroma or fragrance of rose water.

rose water

¹ American  

[rohz-waw-ter, -wot-er] / ˈroʊzˌwɔ tər, -ˌwɒt ər /

Or rosewater

noun

1. water tinctured with the essential oil of roses, used as a perfume and in cooking.

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rose-water ² American  

[rohz-waw-ter, -wot-er] / ˈroʊzˌwɔ tər, -ˌwɒt ər /

adjective

1. having the aroma or fragrance of rose water.

2. affectedly delicate, nice, or fine; sentimental.

   a Victorian novelist with a genteel, rose-water style.

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rose-water British  

noun

1. 1. scented water used as a perfume and in cooking, made by the distillation of rose petals or by impregnation with oil of roses

   2. ( as modifier )

      rose-water scent

2. (modifier) elegant or delicate, esp excessively so

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Etymology

Origin of rose water¹

First recorded in 1350–1400

Origin of rose-water²

First recorded in 1655–65

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rose water rose-water

The dough is then rolled into small balls, fried and soaked immediately in a warm syrup made from saffron threads and rose water.

From Salon ● Oct. 21, 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

Remove from the heat and whisk in the rose water.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 24, 2023

He left the dining room impregnated with the penetrating fragrance of rose water that she had sprinkled on his head so that she could follow his tracks through the house.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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

Roses were made into rose-water and also into rose conserve, a kind of sweetmeat of rose-petals, sugar and spice packed in little jars.

From In the Days of the Guild by Louise Lamprey

"O I did get the rose-water Whair ye wull neir get nane, For I did get that very rose-water95 Into my mithers wame."

From English and Scottish Ballads, Volume II (of 8) by Various

Is not God very good to give us roses to look at and smell; and to make into rose-water, after they are all faded and fallen to pieces?

From Guide to the Kindergarten and Intermediate Class and Moral Culture of Infancy. by Mary E. Mann

Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind.

From Life Without and Life Within or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. by Margaret Fuller

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