Meaning

noun European garden herb with purple-tinged flowers and leaves that are sometimes used for salads

noun any of several plants of the genus Anagallis

originFrom Anglo-Norman pimpernele et al., Middle French pimpinelle (“burnet saxifrage”) et al., from Medieval Latin pimpinella, pipinella, most likely from piper (“pepper”) because its fruit resembled peppercorns, although variants may suggest other derivations, bipinnella the bipennis (“two-winged”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0