A small individual cake or cupcake, especially one that is elegantly decorated or presented.
From 'cake' plus the French diminutive suffix '-ette,' creating a word that means 'little cake.' This follows the same pattern as 'kitchenette,' 'novelette,' and 'rosette,' borrowing French's productive diminutive system.
French '-ette' is so productive in English that we use it for everything from cigarettes to silhouettes, even though English isn't normally a Romance language—it shows French's lasting influence on English vocabulary.
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