# bunny
## English
### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /ˈbʌni/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ʌni
* Hyphenation: bun‧ny

### Etymology 1

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).

#### Noun

bunny (plural bunnies)
* (informal, childish) A rabbit, especially a juvenile one.
* 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.’
* (sports) In basketball, an easy shot (i.e., one right next to the bucket) that is missed.
* (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)!
* (cricket) Synonym of rabbit (“batsman frequently dismissed by the same bowler”)

##### Derived terms

* angst bunny
* badge bunny
* barracks bunny
* beach bunny
* beans bunny
* blushing bunny
* bridge bunny
* buckle bunny
* bunnyball
* bunny-boiler
* bunny boiler
* bunny-boiling
* bunny boot
* bunny buster
* bunny chow
* bunny dip
* bunny ear cactus
* bunny ears
* bunny ears cactus
* bunny girl
* bunny grass
* bunny hill
* bunny-hop
* bunny hop
* bunny hopper
* bunnyhopping
* bunny-hug
* bunny hug
* bunny hugger
* bunny hunt
* bunnykind
* bunny mother
* bunny rabbit
* bunny ranch
* bunny rat
* bunny slope
* bunny suit
* bunny trail
* bunny wunny
* chubby bunny
* cuddle-bunny
* cuddle bunny
* dumb bunny
* Duracell bunny
* dust bunny
* Easter Bunny
* Energizer bunny
* fluff bunny
* fluffy bunny
* fuckbunny
* fuck bunny
* gym bunny
* happy bunny
* honeybunny
* honey bunny
* jungle bunny
* pink bunny
* Playboy Bunny, Playboy bunny
* plot bunny
* puck-bunny
* puck bunny
* reverse bunny suit
* rope bunny
* ski bunny
* slope bunny
* snow bunny
* snuggle-bunny
* snuggle bunny
* Stanford bunny
* sun bunny
* sun-bunny
* that's the bunny

##### Translations
#### Adjective

bunny (comparative bunnier, superlative bunniest)
* (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.

##### Synonyms

* (easy or unchallenging): nursery

### Etymology 2

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.

#### Alternative forms

* bunney, bonie

#### Noun

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

### Etymology 3

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.

#### Noun

bunny (plural bunnies)
* (UK dialectal) A culvert or short covered drain connecting two ditches.
* (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.
* (UK dialectal) Any small drain or culvert.
* (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.
* (UK dialectal) A small pool of water.

### Etymology 4
#### Noun

bunny (plural bunnies)
* (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.

### Etymology 5

From bun (“small bread roll”) +‎ -y.

#### Adjective

bunny (comparative more bunny or bunnier, superlative most bunny or bunniest)
* (rare, humorous) Resembling a bun (small bread roll). [since the 1960s, but always rare]
** 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.

##### Synonyms

* (resembling a bun): bunlike