honey

• hunny (eye dialect)

From Middle English hony, honi, from Old English huniġ, from Proto-West Germanic *hunag, from Proto-Germanic *hunagą (compare West Frisian hunich, German Honig), from earlier *hunangą (compare Swedish honung), from Proto-Indo-European *kn̥h₂onk-o-s, from *kn̥h₂ónks.

Cognate with Middle Welsh canecon (“gold”), Latin canicae pl (“bran”), Tocharian B kronkśe (“bee”), Albanian qengjë (“beehive”), Ancient Greek κνῆκος (knêkos, “safflower”), Northern Kurdish şan (“beehive”), Northern Luri گونج (gonj, “bee”), Finnish hunaja.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhʌni/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ʌni
• Hyphenation: hon‧ey

honey (usually uncountable, plural honeys or (archaic) honies)

1. (uncountable) A viscous, gold-coloured sweet fluid produced from plant nectar by bees, and often consumed by humans.

   The honey in the pot should last for years.

2. (countable) A variety of this substance.
   • 1908, United States. Bureau of Chemistry, Bulletin‎, numbers 110-114:

     The physical properties of the different honeys, color, granulation, aroma, flavor, etc., are indicated in the table only in a very general way.

   • 1949, Roy A. Grout, editor, The Hive and the Honey Bee‎:

     If two of the California honeys, western hyssop and fleabane, having a positive polarization at 200 C. are disregarded, then the remaining...

   • 2011, Stephen Taylor, Advances in Food and Nutrition Research‎, volume 62:

     Eucalyptus honeys could be characterized based on seven volatile compounds, whereas lavender honeys had only five...

3. (rare) Nectar.
4. (figuratively) Something sweet or desirable.
   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], lines 91–93:

     O my love, my wife! / Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath / Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

   • 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     the honey of his language

5. A term of affection.

   Honey, would you take out the trash?

   Honey, I'm home.

   • 2013 July 30, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Tuesday, Jul 30, 2013:

     "So far, so good... are you doing okay?" "Flying... is awesome!" "Focus, honey."

6. (countable, informal) A woman, especially an attractive one.

   Man, there are some fine honeys here tonight!

   • 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 130:

     College was wild. I was like a happy little white kid playing in a sandbox full of toys. Honeys, basketball, music, I indulged in all of that shit to the max. And oh yeah. I went to a couple of classes too. I wasn't totally ass-out stupid.

7. A spectrum of pale yellow to brownish-yellow colour, like that of most types of (the sweet substance) honey.

   honey:  

• (sweet fluid from bees): mel
• (term of affection): darling, sweetie, see also Thesaurus:sweetheart

• food
• liquid

• → Japanese: ハニー (hanī)
• →⇒ Jarai: ia hơni
• → Marshallese: ōne
• Sranan Tongo: oni
• Tok Pisin: hani

honey (comparative honeyer or honier, superlative honeyest or honiest)

1. Involving or resembling honey.
   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     So work the honey-bees, / Creatures that by a rule in nature teach / The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

   • 1907, Madison Cawein, “One Day and Another: A Lyrical Eclogue”, in The Poems of Madison Cawein, volumes II (New World Idylls and Poems of Love), Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 8:

     Dim as the forming of / Dew in the warming of / Moonlight, they light on the petals; / All is revealed to them; / All!—from the sunniest / Tips to the honiest / Heart, whence they yield to them / Spice, through the darkness that settles.

   • 1911 January 3, “[The Children’s Corner] Wireless Telegraphy”, in The Inglenook, volume XIII, number 1, Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Publishing House, page 19, column 1:

     “I say,” it said, “don’t gran’ma make the hunkiest frosted cookies, though?” / “My, yes, an’ gran’pa’s bees the honiest honey?” flashed back from Station Mary.

   • 1950, Percy MacKaye, The Mystery Of Hamlet, King of Denmark, or What We Will: A Tetralogy by Percy MacKaye, in Prologue to The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, by William Shakespeare, London: The Bodley Head, published 1952, page 397:

     moll / Even to the least detail of love and duty / To win the dalliance of her majesty. / king hamlet / Dalliance? / moll / ’T is the honiest word that sticks / On my lord Osric’s tongue, like a dayfly’s wing / On a toad’s tongue-tip.

   • 1962, Harper’s Bazaar, volume 95, page 204:

     Its perfume is variously described as ‘divine’ and reminiscent of nuts. Of grapes it is the grapiest; of honey the honiest.

   • 1985, P.T. Raju, Structural Depths of Indian Thought, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, pages 407–408:

     The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad speaks of the ātman as the honey (madhu) and as the “honiest” of all the honeys.

   • 2004 March 13, Janet McKnight, “Beer”, in uk.misc‎ (Usenet), archived from the original on 2024-02-21:

     Have you tried Fuller's(?) organic honey beer? It's much, much nicer than Waggledance. Honeyer. Mmmm.

2. Of a pale yellow to brownish-yellow colour, like most types of honey.
   • 1964, Thomas Berger, “My Indian Wife”, in Little Big Man, New York, N.Y.: The Dial Press, →LCCN, page 214:

     Then I looked close at the scalp he stroked, which was of the silkiest blonde. For a moment I was sure it come from Olga’s dear head, and reckoned also he had little Gus’s fine skull-cover someplace among his filthy effects, the stinking old savage, living out his life of murder, rapine, and squalor, and I almost knifed him before I collected myself and realized the hair was honeyer than my Swedish wife’s.

3. Honey-sweet.
   • 1876, Stephen J[oseph] Mac Kenna, Handfast to Strangers: A Novel, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 137:

     But he answered the question with the honiest—Bohemian honey—of smiles: […]

   • 1886, Émile Zola, unknown translator, chapter II, in His Masterpiece? (L’Œuvre.) Or, Claude Lantier’s Struggle for Fame. A Realistic Novel., London: Vizetelly & Co., […], page 54:

     But he suddenly changed his mind and came back. “Just listen, Lantier,” he said, in the honeyest of tones, “I want a lobster painted. […]”

     [original: Mais il se ravisa et revint dire, de son air bonhomme : « Écoutez donc Lantier, j’ai besoin d’un homard… […] »]

   • 1908 January 25, Rose Melville, “Sis Hopkins’ Sayings”, in The Sandusky Star-Journal, Sandusky, Oh., page twelve:

     No man has any business to say that his boy is honier than he was,—or is.

   • 1927 November 9, Punch, or The London Charivari, London: […] [T]he Office, […], page 512, columns 2–3:

     “Oh, my dears, I must tell you this. At dinner the other evening I made a really truly growly belted earl squirm. I had told him how much I liked a little speech he had made, when he turned on me in his most growly belted early manner. / “‘Do you say that, Lady Polly,’ he snorted, ‘because it is the truth or because it is the correct thing to say?’ / “‘Not being an earl,’ I replied in my honeyest voice, ‘I don’t recognise any difference between the two.’

   • 1957, William J[ulius] Lederer, Ensign O’Toole and Me, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., →LCCN, page 177:

     “We’ve placed your arms in that position, Miss Day,” I said in my honeyest voice, “because it’s the safest just in case you have a fracture. […]”

   • 1970, Cal, volumes 33–35, page 1:

     Then this guy stalled at my desk, fishing for his wallet, giving me the honeyest smile.

   • 2001, Adrian Mitchell, Zoo of Dreams, London: Orchard Books, →ISBN, page 37:

     Then upside down by her tail she swings / And sings in the honeyest voice I’ve heard: / “One day I will grow a pair of wings / And become a furry Hummingbird.”

   • 2005, Lee Siegel, Who Wrote the Book of Love?, Chicago, Ill., London: The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 17:

     It was Neezer who had found Sally for us at his church, where, he testified, the woman sang “with the honeyest voice you ever heard. If her singing don’t make the Lord happy, nothing does.”

   • 2017 April 19, Dave Segal, “The Zombies: Odessey and Oracle 50th Anniversary”, in The Stranger, volume 26, number 34, Seattle, Wash., page 37, column 3:

     After hundreds of listens, Odessey and Oracle still sounds like a paragon of poignant psychedelic pop, rendered in orchestral splendor and adorned with indelible melodies that are to cry for, sung in the honeyest of tones by the angelically melancholy [Colin] Blunstone.

   • 2018 March–April, J. K. Khuman, “Gender, Class, and Caste Consciousness with Special Reference to Indian Literature”, in Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies, volume 5, number 44, →ISSN, page 9756:

     Sweet is the honey, and sweet is the rain, the sweeter though (honeyer than honey) is my mother.

     [original: MEETHAN MADHU NE MEETHA MEHULA RE LOL, ETHI MEETHEE TE MORI MAT RE, JANANEE NI JOD SAKHI !]

   • 2023, David Samir Yaghnam, “But how can I, look at me”, in Adam and Eve, This Age!, [Lighthouse Point, Fla.: Visionary Book Writers], →ISBN, page 710:

     “Thanks honey, I love you.” / Kaya, “I like it when you say, honey.” / “I like it too, but you are honeyer than honey.”

honey (third-person singular simple present honeys, present participle honeying, simple past and past participle honeyed)

1. (transitive) To sweeten; to make agreeable.
2. (transitive) To add honey to.
3. (intransitive) To be gentle, agreeable, or coaxing; to talk fondly; to use endearments.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:

     Honeying and making love.

4. (intransitive) To be or become obsequiously courteous or complimentary; to fawn.
   • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Prologue”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 6:

     [O]ne / Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men / But honeying at the whisper of a lord; / And one the Master, as a rogue in grain / Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.

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• Appendix:Colors