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bonny - 7 dictionary results

bon⋅ny

[bon-ee] adjective, -ni⋅er, -ni⋅est, adverb, noun
–adjective
1. Chiefly Scot. pleasing to the eye; handsome; pretty.
2. British Dialect.
a. (of people) healthy, sweet, and lively.
b. (of places) placid; tranquil.
c. pleasing; agreeable; good.
–adverb
3. British Dialect. pleasingly; agreeably; very well.
–noun
4. Scot. and North England Archaic. a pretty girl or young woman.
Also, bonnie.


Origin:
1425–75; late ME (Scots) bonie, perh. < OF bon good + -ie -y 1 , perh. by analogy with jolie jolly


bon⋅ni⋅ly, adverb
bon⋅ni⋅ness, noun

Bon⋅nie

[bon-ee]
–noun
a female given name: from the Latin word meaning “good.”
Also, Bonny.
bon·ny also bon·nie   (bŏn'ē)   
adj.   bon·ni·er, bon·ni·est Scots
  1. Physically attractive or appealing; pretty.
  2. Excellent.

[Probably ultimately from French bon, good, from Latin bonus; see deu-2 in Indo-European roots.]
bon'ni·ly adv., bon'ni·ness n.

Bonny

Bon"ny\, a. [Spelled bonnie by the Scotch.] [OE. boni, prob. fr. F. bon, fem. bonne, good, fr. L. bonus good. See Bounty, and cf. Bonus, Boon.]

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

Till bonny Susan sped across the plain. --Gay.

Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr. --Burns.

2. Gay; merry; frolicsome; cheerful; blithe.

Be you blithe and bonny. --Shak.

Report speaks you a bonny monk, that would hear the mati?chime ere he quitted his bowl. --Sir W. Scott.

Bonny

Bon"ny\, n. (Mining) A round and compact bed of ore, or a distinct bed, not communicating with a vein.

bonny 
1548, of unknown origin, apparently connected in some way with O.Fr. bon, bone "good."

Bonny

town and Atlantic oil port situated in Rivers state, southern Nigeria. It lies along the Bonny River (an eastern distributary of the Niger River) 6 miles (10 km) upstream from the Bight of Biafra. A traditional trading centre (fish, salt, palm oil, and palm kernels) of the Ijo people, it was the capital of the 15th- to 19th-century kingdom of Bonny. Reaching its height in the reign of the Pepple dynasty in the 18th and early 19th centuries, its economy (and the kingdom's) was based on the sale of slaves to European traders. It was one of the largest slave-exporting depots of West Africa-in 1790 about 20,000 people (most of them Igbo and other hinterland groups) were shipped to the Americas. The Pepple kings were unhappy with the British decision in the 1830s to enforce the end of the slave trade; but British arms and political intrigue proved decisive, and by the 1850s Bonny had become a major exporter of palm oil and palm kernels. It remained an important port (shipping ivory, timber, and beeswax, as well as palm produce) until 1916, when it was eclipsed by Port Harcourt, the new railroad terminus 35 miles (56 km) upstream.

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