boon
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /buːn/
rhymes: -uːn
Forms: form: booner
form: boonest
Etymology: From Middle English boon, bone, borrowed from Old Northern French boon, from Old French bon (“good”), from Latin bonus (“good”), from Old Latin duonus, dvenos, from Proto-Indo-European *dū- (“to respect”).
Senses: examples: text: Greedily ſhe ingorg’d without restraint, / And knew not eating Death: Satiate at length, / And hight’nd as with Wine, jocond and boon, / Thus to herſelf ſhe pleaſingly began.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 791-794:
text: I knovv the Infirmity of our Family; vve are apt to play the Boon-Companion, and throvv avvay our Money in our Cups: […]
ref: 1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “How the Guardians of the Deceas’d Mrs. Bull’s Three Daughters Came to John, and What Advice They Gave Him; wherein in Briefly Treated the Characters of the Three Daughters: Also John Bull’s Answer to the Three Guardians”, in John Bull in His Senses: Being the Second Part of Law is a Bottomless-Pit. […], Edinburgh: […] James Watson, […], →OCLC, page 30:
text: I’m a lonely old man; I lead a life that I don’t like, among boon companions, who make me melancholy.
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “In or Near the Temple Garden”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 110:
text: ―No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher, and friend, if I were in your shoes.
ref: 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16: Eumaeus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 576:
text: [T]he boon twins Art and Con aged thirty-seven years […]
ref: 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
text: (2) "Everybody's boon companion, / Everybody's chaperon"; (3) "Everybody's boon companion: / Give[s] 'em everything he's got"
ref: 1985, Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics), Les Misérables (musical), "Master of the House," second and third refrains, fifth line
glosses: Gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
raw_tags: in boon companion
examples: text: With mazie error under pendant ſhades / Ran Nectar, viſiting each plant, and fed /Flours worthy of Paradiſe which not nice Art / In Beds and curious Knots, but Nature boon / Powrd forth profuſe on Hill and Dale and Plaine, / […]
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 239-243:
glosses: Kind; bountiful; benign.
examples: text: boon voyage
glosses: Good; prosperous.
Derived terms: ace boon coon
boon companion
Related terms: bounty