bunny

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbʌni/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌni
• Hyphenation: bun‧ny

From bun (“rabbit”) +‎ -y (diminutive suffix). Probably from Scottish Gaelic bun (“bottom, butt, stump, stub”), from Old Irish bun (“the thick end of anything, base, butt, foot”), from Proto-Celtic *bonus, though its origin is uncertain. Compare also English bum. Together with rabbit, bunny has largely displaced its former rhyme cony (see cony for more).

bunny (plural bunnies)

1. (informal, childish) A rabbit, especially a juvenile one.
2. A bunny girl: a nightclub waitress who wears a costume having rabbit ears and tail.
   • 1969, Doris Lessing, The Four-Gated City, Flamingo 1993 edition, page 578:

     ‘Gwen has a job as a bunny because says she's sick of sex.’

3. (sports) In basketball, an easy shot (i.e., one right next to the bucket) that is missed.
4. (slang, euphemistic) A menstrual pad.
   • 1992, Maureen Sutton, We Didn't Know Aught, page 17:

     A local chemist remembers: My grandmother made home-made sanitary towels from a type of muslin. They were hand-knitted, washed and re-used. Other women used netting and cotton wool. Home-made towels were known as 'bunnies'.

   • 2007, E. J. McNair, A British Army Nurse in the Korean War, page 177:

     Frustratingly for us, it appeared to be much less of a hassle to purchase an expensive fountain pen, than to find, let alone buy, the smallest bottle of deodorant or a packet of Bunnies (as sanitary towels were nicknamed)!

5. (cricket) Synonym of rabbit (“batsman frequently dismissed by the same bowler”)

bunny (comparative bunnier, superlative bunniest)

1. (skiing) Easy or unchallenging.

   Let’s start on the bunny slope.

   • 2014, Carey Heywood, Sawyer Says: A Companion Novel to Him and Her, →ISBN:

     We are on the bunniest of bunny hills. I've fallen no fewer than six times and I love every minute of it.

• (easy or unchallenging): nursery

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.

• bunney, bonie

bunny (plural bunnies)

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

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.

bunny (plural bunnies)

1. (UK dialectal) A culvert or short covered drain connecting two ditches.
2. (UK 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. (UK dialectal) Any small drain or culvert.
4. (UK 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. (UK dialectal) A small pool of water.

bunny (plural bunnies)

1. (South Africa) Bunny chow; a snack of bread filled with curry.
   • 2008, Steve Pike, Surfing South Africa, page 258:

     Surfers from Durban grew up on bunnies. You get the curry in the bread with the removed square chunk, used to dunk back in the curry.

From bun (“small bread roll”) +‎ -y.

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

1. (rare, humorous) Resembling a bun (small bread roll).
   • 2012, Sue Simkins, Cooking With Mrs Simkins, →ISBN:

     If you would like to make some buns with more of a Chelsea bunlike texture follow the recipe above, but increase the flour to 300g (11oz). This will make them less rich and more 'bunny'.

   • 2014, Bruce Montague, Wedding Bells and Chimney Sweeps, →ISBN:

     Before the interregnum, the cakes made for weddings had been pathetic offerings, consisting mainly of piles of biscuits and scones. When you read the list of ingredients -- sugar, eggs, milk, flour, currents, and spices -- these must have looked and tasted a lot like hot cross buns, but without being hot, without the cross, and without being particularly bunny.

• (resembling a bun): bunlike