Definition of "vignette" []

• A decorative design placed at the beginning or end of a book or chapter of a book or along the border of a page. (noun)
• An unbordered picture, often a portrait, that shades off into the surrounding color at the edges. (noun)
• A short, usually descriptive literary sketch. (noun)
• A short scene or incident, as from a movie. (noun)
• To soften the edges of (a picture) in vignette style. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Of the fourteen short sketches, it is difficult to measure one above the other; nevertheless, the title vignette,"
• "And discovered that what I needed to be a 2k-word vignette is determined to be a 4k-word short story."
• "After all, a vignette is a simple character sketch, and Ballard himself has always been assaulted by critics for his poor characterization."