Plautdietsch

Noun

Boon f ‎(plural Boone)

1. bean

English

Noun

boon ‎(plural boons)

1. (obsolete) A prayer; petition.
   • (Can we [[:Category:Requests for quotation/Edmund Spenser|find and add]] a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)[[Category:Requests for quotation/Edmund Spenser|BOON]]:

     For which to God he made so many an idle boon […]

2. (archaic) That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift; a favour; benefaction; a grant; a present.
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of James I. 17 to this entry?):

     Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above […]

   • 1872, James De Mille, The Cryptogram:

     I gave you life. Can you not return the boon by giving me death, my lord?

3. A good; a blessing or benefit; a great privilege; a thing to be thankful for.
   • 2013 July-August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist:

     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.

   Finding the dry cave was a boon to the weary travellers.   Anaesthetics are a great boon to modern surgery.‎

4. (Britain dialectal) An unpaid service due by a tenant to his lord.

Synonyms

• (a thing received) See gift and favor
• (a good thing) blessing; benefit

Antonyms

• bane

Translations

See also

• boon and bane

Etymology 2

From Middle English boon, bone, from Old Northern French boon, Old French bon ‎(“good”), from Latin bonus ‎(“good”), from Old Latin duonus, dvenos, from Proto-Indo-European *dū- ‎(“to respect”).

Adjective

boon ‎(not comparable)

1. (obsolete) good; prosperous; as, "boon voyage"
2. kind; bountiful; benign
   • Milton

     Which […] Nature boon / Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.

3. (Fossil word used only in idiom pairing it with subsequent "companion") gay; merry; jovial; convivial
   • Arbuthnot

     a boon companion, loving his bottle

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses Episode 16

     --No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, if I were in your shoes.

   • 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"

Translations

Quotations

• Which ... Nature boon Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain — John Milton
• A boon companion, loving his bottle — John Arbuthnot

Etymology 3

From Scottish Gaelic and Irish via Scots.

Noun

boon ‎(uncountable)

1. The woody portion of flax, separated from the fiber as refuse matter by retting, braking, and scutching.

Anagrams

• noob
• obon

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -oːn
• (Belgium) IPA^(key): /boːn/
• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /boʊ̯n/

Etymology

From Middle Dutch bone, from Old Dutch *bōna, from Proto-Germanic *baunō, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰabʰ- ‎(“bean”). Compare Low German Bohn, German Bohne, English and West Frisian bean, Danish bønne.

Noun

boon f, m ‎(plural bonen, diminutive boontje n)

1. bean

Hypernyms

• peulvrucht

Derived terms

• blauwe boon
• bruine boon
• cacaoboon
• kidneyboon
• koffieboon
• rumboon
• snijboon
• sperzieboon
• witte boon