bonny

B3O1N1N1Y4

proper noun

A female given name from English.

Less commonScrabble 10

Meanings

bonny1

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

comparative bonnier · comparative more bonny · superlative bonniest · superlative most bonny

  1. GeordiealternativeAlternative spelling of bonnie (“attractive”).

    “ A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,”

    1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter VII, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume I, London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC, page 125
    2 more examples

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

    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

    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.

    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

bonny2

nounbonny (plural bonnies)

plural bonnies

  1. Northern IrelandalternativeinformalAlternative spelling of bonnie (“bonfire”).

Bonny3

proper noun
  1. A female given name from English.

Bonny4

proper nounBonny (countable and uncountable, plural Bonnys)

plural Bonnys

  1. countableuncountableA surname.

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectivevery pleasing to the eye

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

bonny · adjective

  1. Latinbonus“good”
  2. Old Frenchbon
  3. Middle English*boni
  4. Englishbonny

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.

Full word history & related roots →

Bonny · proper noun

Variant of Bonnie.

Full word history & related roots →

Bonny · proper noun

Variant of Bonnie or Bonnet.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with bonny

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

bonny. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonny

MLA

“bonny.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonny. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bonny,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonny.

Source: bonny on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.