vanilla

noun

1. (countable)Any tropical climbing orchid of the genus Vanilla (especially Vanilla planifolia), bearing podlike fruit yielding an extract used in flavoring food or in perfumes.

   “Vanilla itself was transplanted from Madagascar, the main source of the spice, to Polynesia a century ago.”

2. (countable)The fruit or bean of the vanilla plant.
3. (uncountable)The extract of the fruit of the vanilla plant.
4. (uncountable)The distinctive fragrant flavour/flavor characteristic of vanilla extract.
5. (uncountable)Any artificially produced homologue of vanilla extract, principally vanillin produced from lignin from the paper industry or from petrochemicals.
6. (countable, slang)Someone who is not into fetishism.
7. (slang, uncountable)An unmodded version of a game.
8. (countable, uncountable)A yellowish-white colour, like that of vanilla ice cream.
9. (countable, derogatory, ethnic, slur, uncountable)A white person.

adj

1. (usually)Of vanilla.

   “A mass of folders and binders. One, vanilla in colour, catches her eye.”

2. (colloquial, retronym)Standard, plain, default, unmodified, basic.

   “vanilla JavaScript”

   “BBCFiles is a BBC file converter that converts between some of the various types of files used by BBC emulators on Acorn & PC formats. It supports 6502Em style applications & scripts, /ssd dfs disc images (supporting watford double catalogue), vanilla directories, /zip of bbc files with /inf files (with limitations) and directory of bbc files with /inf files.”

3. Not kinky, not involving BDSM.

   “An uncharacteristically vanilla threesome and non-cute realist rendering - derived paradoxically from tracing drawings rather than photographs.”

   “While Dominick was more of a vanilla kind of a guy himself, he wasn't a total dunce when it came to the kinkier sides of things.”

   “Sebastian could never do that, be in a marriage with a vanilla woman.”

4. Plain; conventional; unimaginative.

   “The further right or left you go, the more likely you are to eventually come around to hating Jews. On the left, this is plain to see. From the Corbyn-era trend to attack Israel for all the world's sins, to the self-hating asaJews that tweeted enthusiastically about October 7 being a 'day of celebration' to previously vanilla comedian Reginald Hunter retweeting posts about the evils of the Talmud.”