“Vignette” comes from the same word in French, which fuses “vigne,” meaning “vine,” with the diminutive suffix “-ette,” meaning “little.” The term was originally used in architecture to describe ornamental vine carvings, but was then used in mid-18th-century book publishing for the botanical-inspired ornamental drawings on chapter headings. By the 20th century, “vignette” was most closely associated with short literary works or anecdotes evocative of a particular time and situation. Literary vignettes (which can also be described as sketches) are often collected with similarly themed material, such as in Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War meditation, “The Things They Carried.”