honey

plural honeys · archaic plural honies · alternative obsolete hony · alternative pronunciation spelling hunney · alternative pronunciation spelling hunny

1. uncountableusuallyA sweet, viscous, gold-colored fluid produced from plant nectar by bees, and often consumed by humans.

   The honey in the pot should last for years.

   Synonyms: mel

2. countableusuallyA variety of this substance.

   Eucalyptus honeys could be characterized based on seven volatile compounds, whereas lavender honeys had only five...

   2011, Stephen Taylor, Advances in Food and Nutrition Research, volume 62

   2 more examples

   The physical properties of the different honeys, color, granulation, aroma, flavor, etc., are indicated in the table only in a very general way.

   1908, United States. Bureau of Chemistry, Bulletin, numbers 110-114

   If two of the California honeys, western hyssop and fleabane, having a positive polarization at 200 C. are disregarded, then the remaining...

   1949, Roy A. Grout, editor, The Hive and the Honey Bee

3. rareuncountableusuallyNectar.
4. figurativelyuncountableusuallySomething sweet or desirable.

   the honey of his language

   1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   1 more example

   O my love, my wife! / Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath / Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

   c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], lines 91–93

5. uncountableusuallyA term of affection.

   Honey, I'm home.

   2 more examples

   Honey, would you take out the trash?

   "So far, so good... are you doing okay?" "Flying... is awesome!" "Focus, honey."

   2013 July 30, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Tuesday, Jul 30, 2013

   Synonyms: darling

6. countableinformalusuallyA woman, especially an attractive one.

   Man, there are some fine honeys here tonight!

   3 more examples

   It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around If I don't find me a honey to help me spend my money I'm gonna have to blow this town.

   1963, Sam Cooke, “Another Saturday Night”, in Ain't That Good News

   College was wild. I was like a happy little white kid playing in a sandbox full of toys. Honeys, basketball, music, I indulged in all of that shit to the max. And oh yeah. I went to a couple of classes too. I wasn't totally ass-out stupid.

   2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 130

   Last thing you wanna do is talk shop at a party, so no artsy-fartsy chitchat. If you need to leave, tap me on my shoulder, and we're outie. Unless I have a honey on the line, in which case, hoof it, capiche?

   2019, Mike Oppenhuizen, “Y.G.A.G.G.” (17:13 from the start), in Wendey Stanzler, director, Atypical, season 3, episode 4, spoken by Zahid (Nik Dodani), via Netflix

7. uncountableusuallyA spectrum of pale yellow to brownish-yellow color, like that of most types of (the sweet substance) honey.
8. uncountableusuallyvulgarAfrican-American VernacularPrecum; pre-ejaculate.

comparative honeyer · comparative honier · superlative honeyest · superlative honiest · alternative obsolete hony · alternative pronunciation spelling hunney · alternative pronunciation spelling hunny

1. Involving or resembling honey.

   So work the honey-bees, / Creatures that by a rule in nature teach / The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

   1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

   5 more examples

   Dim as the forming of / Dew in the warming of / Moonlight, they light on the petals; / All is revealed to them; / All!—from the sunniest / Tips to the honiest / Heart, whence they yield to them / Spice, through the darkness that settles.

   1907, Madison Cawein, “One Day and Another: A Lyrical Eclogue”, in The Poems of Madison Cawein, volumes II (New World Idylls and Poems of Love), Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 8

   “I say,” it said, “don’t gran’ma make the hunkiest frosted cookies, though?” / “My, yes, an’ gran’pa’s bees the honiest honey?” flashed back from Station Mary.

   1911 January 3, “[The Children’s Corner] Wireless Telegraphy”, in The Inglenook, volume XIII, number 1, Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Publishing House, page 19, column 1

   moll / Even to the least detail of love and duty / To win the dalliance of her majesty. / king hamlet / Dalliance? / moll / ’T is the honiest word that sticks / On my lord Osric’s tongue, like a dayfly’s wing / On a toad’s tongue-tip.

   1950, Percy MacKaye, The Mystery Of Hamlet, King of Denmark, or What We Will: A Tetralogy by Percy MacKaye, in Prologue to The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, by William Shakespeare, London: The Bodley Head, published 1952, page 397

   Its perfume is variously described as ‘divine’ and reminiscent of nuts. Of grapes it is the grapiest; of honey the honiest.

   1962, Harper’s Bazaar, volume 95, page 204

   The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad speaks of the ātman as the honey (madhu) and as the “honiest” of all the honeys.

   1985, P.T. Raju, Structural Depths of Indian Thought, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, pages 407–408

2. Of a pale yellow to brownish-yellow color, like most types of honey.

   1 more example

   Then I looked close at the scalp he stroked, which was of the silkiest blonde. For a moment I was sure it come from Olga’s dear head, and reckoned also he had little Gus’s fine skull-cover someplace among his filthy effects, the stinking old savage, living out his life of murder, rapine, and squalor, and I almost knifed him before I collected myself and realized the hair was honeyer than my Swedish wife’s.

   1964, Thomas Berger, “My Indian Wife”, in Little Big Man, New York, N.Y.: The Dial Press, →LCCN, page 214

3. Honey-sweet.

   No man has any business to say that his boy is honier than he was,—or is.

   1908 January 25, Rose Melville, “Sis Hopkins’ Sayings”, in The Sandusky Star-Journal, Sandusky, Oh., page twelve

   5 more examples

   But he answered the question with the honiest—Bohemian honey—of smiles: […]

   1876, Stephen J[oseph] Mac Kenna, Handfast to Strangers: A Novel, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 137

   Mais il se ravisa et revint dire, de son air bonhomme : « Écoutez donc Lantier, j’ai besoin d’un homard…[…] »

   1886, Émile Zola, unknown translator, chapter II, in His Masterpiece? (L’Œuvre.) Or, Claude Lantier’s Struggle for Fame. A Realistic Novel., London: Vizetelly & Co., […], page 54

   “Oh, my dears, I must tell you this. At dinner the other evening I made a really truly growly belted earl squirm. I had told him how much I liked a little speech he had made, when he turned on me in his most growly belted early manner. / “‘Do you say that, Lady Polly,’ he snorted, ‘because it is the truth or because it is the correct thing to say?’ / “‘Not being an earl,’ I replied in my honeyest voice, ‘I don’t recognise any difference between the two.’

   1927 November 9, Punch, or The London Charivari, London: […] [T]he Office, […], page 512, columns 2–3

   “We’ve placed your arms in that position, Miss Day,” I said in my honeyest voice, “because it’s the safest just in case you have a fracture.[…]”

   1957, William J[ulius] Lederer, Ensign O’Toole and Me, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., →LCCN, page 177

   Then this guy stalled at my desk, fishing for his wallet, giving me the honeyest smile.

   1970, Cal, volumes 33–35, page 1

present singular third person honeys · participle present honeying · participle past honeyed · past honeyed · alternative obsolete hony · alternative pronunciation spelling hunney · alternative pronunciation spelling hunny

1. transitiveTo sweeten; to make agreeable.
2. transitiveTo add honey to.
3. intransitiveTo be gentle, agreeable, or coaxing; to talk fondly; to use endearments.

   Honeying and making love.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]

4. intransitiveTo be or become obsequiously courteous or complimentary; to fawn.

   [O]ne / Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men / But honeying at the whisper of a lord; / And one the Master, as a rogue in grain / Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.

   1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Prologue”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 6

plural Honeys

1. A female given name
2. A surname.