bonny - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

• Rhymes: -ɒni

From Middle English *boni (attested only rarely as bon, boun), probably from Old French bon, feminine bonne (“good”), from Latin bonus (“good”). See bounty, and compare bonus, boon.

bonny (comparative bonnier or more bonny, superlative bonniest or most bonny)

1. (Geordie) Alternative spelling of bonnie (“attractive”).
   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter VII, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume I, London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC, page 125:
     “ A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,”

• bonnily

• bonniness

• unbonny

• Frank Graham, editor (1987), “BONNY”, in The New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing, →ISBN.

• Todd's Geordie Words and Phrases, George Todd, Newcastle, 1977[1]

• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4

• “bonny”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Clipping of bonfire.

bonny (plural bonnies)

1. (Northern Ireland, informal) Alternative spelling of bonnie (“bonfire”).

• boannie, bonie, bonnie, bony

bonny (comparative mair bonny, superlative maist bonny)

1. handsome; beautiful; pretty; attractively lively and graceful
   • 1714, John Gay, Friday; or, the Dirge‎[2]:

• “bonny, adj., adv., n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, retrieved 7 June 2024, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.

bonny

1. alternative form of boney

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 27