boon
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /buːn/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -uːn
Etymology 1
From Middle English boon (“prayer”), from Old Norse bón (“prayer, petition”), from Proto-Germanic *bōniz (“supplication”), influenced by boon (“good, favorable”, adj). Doublet of ben; see there for more.
Noun
boon (plural boons)
- A good thing; a blessing or benefit; a thing to be thankful for.
- Finding the dry cave was a boon to the weary travellers.
- Anaesthetics are a great boon to modern surgery.
- 2013 July–August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 4, archived from the original on 2013-09-07:
- Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus. […] A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that. Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale.
- 2023 July 21, Patrick Kingsley, “What’s Reasonable? A Debate Over a High Court’s Reach Divides Israel.”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-25:
- Supporters of the measure, which Parliament is expected to vote on next Monday, present it as a boon for democracy: a modest limit on the ways in which an elected government can be stymied by unelected judges, who will in any case still have other tools to overrule ministers.
- 2023 October 11, Jonathan Cook, “Israel-Palestine war: The blood of Gaza is on the West’s hands as much as Israel’s”, in Middle East Eye:
- President Joe Biden has declared - approvingly - that a “long war” is ahead between Israel and Hamas. Washington seems to relish long wars, which always prove a boon to its arms industries and a distraction from domestic troubles.
- (archaic) That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift or benefaction.
- 1871, James De Mille, The Cryptogram, New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, page 194, column 2:
- I gave you life. Can you not return the boon by giving me death, my lord?
- 1881, English Revised Version, The New Testament, in the revised version of 1881, with fuller references, Oxford: Oxford University Press, published 1910, James 1:17, page 548:
- Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.
- 1949, Joseph Campbell, “The Hero and the God”, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
- [T]he hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man[.]
- (obsolete) A prayer; petition.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 34, page 503:
- The wofull husbandman doth lowd complaine, / To ſee his whole yeares labor loſt ſo ſoone, / For which to God he made ſo many an idle boone.
- (British, dialectal) An unpaid service due by a tenant to his lord.
- (Hindu mythology) A blessing, typically a supernatural power, granted to an ascetic by a god or goddess.
- 2007, Klaus Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism: Third Edition, New York: State University of New York Press, page 38:
Synonyms
- (a thing received) See Thesaurus:gift
- (a good thing) blessing; benefit
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
A blessing or benefit
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a gift; a benefaction; a grant; a present
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a prayer or petition
Etymology 2
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”).
Adjective
boon (comparative booner, superlative boonest)
- (now only in boon companion) Gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
- 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:
- 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.
- 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:
- I knovv the Infirmity of our Family; vve are apt to play the Boon-Companion, and throvv avvay our Money in our Cups: […]
- 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:
- I’m a lonely old man; I lead a life that I don’t like, among boon companions, who make me melancholy.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16: Eumaeus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 576:
- ―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.
- 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:
- [T]he boon twins Art and Con aged thirty-seven years […]
- 1985, Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics), Les Misérables (musical), "Master of the House," second and third refrains, fifth line:
- (2) "Everybody's boon companion, / Everybody's chaperon"; (3) "Everybody's boon companion: / Give[s] 'em everything he's got"
- (archaic) Kind; bountiful; benign.
- 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:
- 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, / […]
- (obsolete) Good; prosperous.
- boon voyage
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
kind; bountiful; benign
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Etymology 3
From Middle English bone (“reed, stem, husk”), akin to or alteration of Old English bune (“reed; drinking cup”).[1]
Noun
boon (uncountable)
- The woody portion of flax, separated from the fiber as refuse matter by retting, braking, and scutching.
Synonyms
References
- “boon, n.3”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.
Anagrams
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