bonny

See also: Bonny

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɒni

Etymology 1

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.

Adjective

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

1. (Geordie) Alternative spelling of bonnie (“attractive”).
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 96:

     “ […] report speaks you a bonny monk, that would hear the mattin chime ere he quitted his bowl […] ”

   • 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,”

   • 1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published 1912, →OCLC:

     Meg Speedwell was her name. He had seen her walking across a field, not many months after the interment of his second Duchess, Maria, that great and gifted lady. I know not whether it was that her bonny mien fanned in him some embers of his youth, or that he was loth to be outdone in gracious eccentricity by his crony the Duke of Dewlap, who himself had just taken a bride from a dairy.

Derived terms

• bonnily
• bonniness
• unbonny

References

• 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.

Etymology 2

Clipping of bonfire.

Noun

bonny (plural bonnies)

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

Scots

Alternative forms

• boannie, bonie, bonnie, bony

Adjective

bonny (comparative mair bonny, superlative maist bonny)

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

     Till bonny Susan sped a-cross the plain.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1786, Robert Burns, Farewell to the Banks of Ayr:

     Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

References

• “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.

Yola

Noun

bonny

1. alternative form of boney

References

• 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