different between bunny vs bonnie

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?b?ni/
• Rhymes: -?ni
• Hyphenation: bun?ny

Etymology 1

From bun (“rabbit”) +? -y, though its ultimate origin is unknown. Together with rabbit, bunny has largely displaced its rhyme cony.

Noun

bunny (plural bunnies)

1. A rabbit, especially a juvenile.
2. A bunny girl: a nightclub waitress who wears a costume having rabbit ears and tail.
3. (sports) In basketball, an easy shot (i.e., one right next to the bucket) that is missed.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

bunny (comparative bunnier, superlative bunniest)

1. (skiing) Easy or unchallenging.

   Let’s start on the bunny slope.

Synonyms

• (easy or unchallenging): nursery

Etymology 2

From Middle English bony, boni (“swelling, tumor”), from Old French bugne, buigne (“swelling, lump”), from Old Frankish *bungjo (“swelling, bump”), from Proto-Germanic *bungô, *bunkô (“lump, clump, heap, crowd”). More at bunion, bunch.

Alternative forms

• bunney, bonie

Noun

bunny (plural bunnies)

1. (Britain dialectal) A swelling from a blow; a bump.
2. (mining) A sudden enlargement or mass of ore, as opposed to a vein or lode.

Etymology 3

From Middle English bune (“hollow stalk or stem, drinking straw”), from Old English bune (“cup, beaker, drinking vessel; reed, cane”), of unknown origin. Related to English bun, boon (“the stalk of flax or hemp less the fibre”), Scots bune, boon, been, see bun, boon. Compare also bunweed.

Noun

bunny (plural bunnies)

1. (Britain dialectal) A culvert or short covered drain connecting two ditches.
2. (Britain dialectal) A chine or gully formed by water running over the edge of a cliff; a wooded glen or small ravine opening through the cliff line to the sea.
   • 1983, Geoffrey Morley, Smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset, 1700-1850 (page 72)

     Friar's Cliff and Highcliffe have always been what the second name suggests: cliffs too high to scale easily and with no convenient bunnies, chines or combes.

3. (Britain dialectal) Any small drain or culvert.
4. (Britain dialectal) A brick arch or wooden bridge, covered with earth across a drawn or carriage in a water-meadow, just wide enough to allow a hay-wagon to pass over.
5. (Britain dialectal) A small pool of water.

Etymology 4

Noun

bunny (plural bunnies)

1. (South Africa) Bunny chow; a snack of bread filled with curry.

Etymology 5

From bun (“small bread roll”) +? -y.

Adjective

bunny (comparative more bunny or bunnier, superlative most bunny or bunniest)

1. (rare, humorous) Resembling a bun (small bread roll). [since the 1960s, but always rare]

Synonyms

• (resembling a bun): bunlike

English

Alternative forms

• bonny
• bonie (obsolete)

Etymology

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

bonnie (comparative more bonnie, superlative most bonnie)

1. Merry; happy.

   Synonyms: frolicsome, cheerful, blithe, gay

   • 'c. 1598 or 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

     Be you blithe and bonny
     Converting all your sounds of woe
     Into Hey nonny, nonny.

2. (Tyneside, Scotland) Beautiful; pretty; attractive.
3. (dialectal, Scotland, Northern England) Fine, good (often used ironically).

Translations

References

• bonnie in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Bonine, bone-in

Scots

Alternative forms

• bonny

Adjective

bonnie (comparative mair bonnie, superlative maist bonnie)

1. handsome; beautiful; pretty; attractively lively and graceful

References

• Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group / Word Lists / SCOTLAND C18/2 - A SELECTION FROM BURNS' VOCABULARY