English

Alternative forms

• banyak
• buniak
• bunyak

Noun

baniak ‎(plural baniaks)

1. (humorous pejorative slang, chiefly italicized) A fool.
   • 1981: Andrew Suknaski and Dennis Cooley, In the name of Narid: new poems, Porcupine's Quill, p  114:

     ‘baniak baniak you ole ****! | you’re tighter than hogan’s goat!’ | baniak only smiles | a perfect smile

     [footnote] baniak: Ukrainian for cooking pot.

   • 1986: Janice Kulyk Keefer, The Paris-Napoli express, Oberon Press, p 78:

     What woman could ever consent to be his wife, to lose all her dignity and position with a bunyak like that?”

   • 1987: Janice Kulyk Keefer, “Unseen, the cuckoo sings at dawn”, in Jars Balan ed., Yarmarok: Ukrainian writing in Canada since the Second World War, Edmonton: CIUS Press, p 103:

     “What did I keep telling you, Oleh—you baniak, you elephant's arsehole?

   • 1987: Michael John Nimchuk, “The day my grandad died”, in Jars Balan ed., Yarmarok: Ukrainian writing in Canada since the Second World War, Edmonton: CIUS Press, p 172:

     No . . . no. She doesn't give damn for you. Thinks Ziggy good boy but stupid. A baniak a real woman would leave first chance.

   • 1988: Levi Dronyk, “The puck artist”, in Doug Beardsley ed., The rocket, the flower, the hammer, and me, Vancouver: Polestar Books, pp 161:

     Baniak, eh? ¶Literally, a baniak is a pot; in the vernacular, it becomes a “dummy.” Among Ukrainians it's used in a self-deprecating context, or, as with Sammy, an endearment. If “the English” used the word, or the malicious “bohunk,” which amounted to calling a Ukrainian a “nigger,” to address us, a fistfight usually resulted.

     “Baniak, quiet, sshh,” Sammy frowned. “Why you have to be so noisy? How come?”

   • 1995: Michael Ewanchuk, Reflections and reminiscences: Ukrainians in Canada, 1892–1992, M. Ewanchuk, p 36:

     As someone said, that even one with a university degree, BA, could be called “Baniak”, or an empty pot, if that individual isolated himself from the community to which he naturally belonged.

   • 1995: Nika Rylski, “Just a kommedia”, in Aviva Ravel ed., Canadian mosaic: 6 plays, Dundurn Press, p 130:

     God. What a Banyak . . .

Usage notes

Usually italicized as a foreign term not fully naturalized in English.