Word
vanessa
Phoneticsvanes·sa
/vəˈnɛsə/
Definitions
01a person's name
n. a common name for a woman.
n. a female given name, originally coined by the author Jonathan Swift in the 18th century.
“Vanessa is starting her new job at the hospital next Monday.”
“The name Vanessa was famously created by Jonathan Swift for his poem Cadenus and Vanessa, written for his student Esther Vanhomrigh.”
02a type of butterfly
n. a specific group of butterflies that often have bright colours.
n. any butterfly belonging to the genus Vanessa, which includes well-known species like the Red Admiral.
“We saw a beautiful Vanessa butterfly landing on the flowers in the garden.”
“Entomologists noted a significant increase in the local population of Vanessa species following the unusually warm spring weather.”
Technical
Usage
In scientific contexts, the word is usually italicised as part of the genus name.
Synonyms
Etymology
Coined by Jonathan Swift as a pseudonym for a lady friend named Esther Vanhomrigh (or Van Homrigh), an Irish woman of Dutch descent, by taking the Dutch preposition van from her surname and adding -essa (perhaps influenced by the first syllable of Esther).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.