Meanings
bonny1
comparative bonnier · comparative more bonny · superlative bonniest · superlative most bonny
- 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 1252 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 96Meg 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
plural bonnies
- Northern IrelandalternativeinformalAlternative spelling of bonnie (“bonfire”).
Bonny3
- A female given name from English.
Bonny4
plural Bonnys
- countableuncountableA surname.
- countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Morgan County, Kentucky, United States.
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
bonny · adjective
- Latinbonus“good”
- Old Frenchbon
- Middle English*boni
- 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.
More words from Middle English, Old French, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with bonny
All rhymes →Cite this entry
bonny. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonny
“bonny.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonny. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bonny,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonny.
Source: bonny on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.