Forms: 4–7 bonet, (4 bonat, 4–6 bonette), 6– bonnet, (5–6 bonett, 5 bonyte, Sc. bannate, 6 bonnette, bonete, bonnit, bunnet, 6–8 bonnett, Sc. bannet). [ME. bonet, a. OF. bonet, bounet, bonnet, in same sense, short for chapel de bonet (of which see instances in Godef.), ‘hat or cap of bonet,’ a material mentioned in med.L. documents, as bon(n)etus, bon(n)etum: see Du Cange. Ulterior history unknown.]
1. An article of apparel for the head; ‘a covering for the head, a hat, a cap.’ (J.)
a. A head-dress of men and boys; usually soft, and distinguished from the hat by want of a brim. In England, superseded in common use (app. before 1700) by cap, but retained in Scotland; hence sometimes treated as = ‘Scotch cap.’ To vail (or vale) the bonnet: to take it off in respect.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, IX. 506. He gert ay ber about Apon a sper ane red bonat.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 262/3. And couerd his hede with a bonet.
c. 1530. Ld. Berners, Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814), 342. Than Arthur … wente to the Kynge, and dyde of hys bonet.
1532–3. Act 24 Hen. VIII., xiii. No man … [shall] weare … anye wollen clothe made out of this realme … except in bonnettes only.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., I. iv. 31. Off goes his bonnet to an Oyster-wench.
1673. R. Leigh, Transposer Reh., 19. Many a Scotch Kirkman [loses] his Blue Bonnet.
1700. Rycaut, Hist. Turks, III. 317. Having on his Head his Ducal Bonnet.
1704. in Blackw. Mag. (1818), Feb., 521/2. Most of the men … wear thrumb caps in Scotland, which they call bonnetts.
1785. Burns, Cotter’s Sat. Night, xii. His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside.
1814. Scott, Wav., xviii. The martial air of the bonnet, with a single eagle’s feather as a distinction.
1850. Mrs. Jameson, Leg. Monast. Ord. (1863), 333. Wearing the lawyer’s bonnet.
1562. Cooper, Answ. in Def. Truth (1850), 213. All to whom they be shewed, do vail their bonnets.
a. 1618. Raleigh, Rem. (1644), 204. It would make all Nations to vail the Bonnet to England.
1641. R. Brooke, Eng. Episc., 85. All Officers vaile bonnet, when the party giving them power is present.
1682. Bunyan, Holy War, 204. To see men veil their Bonnets to that set, that have officed them.
1827. T. Hamilton, Cyril Thornton, I. 174. The shepherd vailed his bonnet and looked down on us bare-headed from the hill.
† b. A cap of mail, a kind of helmet. Obs.
c. 1505. Dunbar, Sev. Deadly Sins, 37. Iakkis, and stryppis and bonettis of steill.
† c. A night-cap. Obs. (F. bonnet de nuit.)
1513. Bk. Keruynge, in Babees Bk. (1868), 283. Put on … his kercher and his bonet.
d. A head-dress of women out of doors; distinguished from a hat (at present) mainly by the want of a brim, and by its covering no part of the forehead.
1499. Acct., in Comm.-place Bk. 15th C. (1886), 167. It. for a bonet of welwete bowte for hyr at Norweche.
c. 1505. Dunbar, Sev. Deadly Sins, 17. Pryd, With bair wyld bak and bonet on syd.
1530. Papers Earls of Cumbld., in Whitaker, Hist. Craven, 305. Three black velvet bonnetts for women.
1716. S. Masters’ Patent, No. 403. A new way of working and staining in straw and … adorning hatts and bonnetts.
1786. Lounger, No. 79. The progress of bonnets from the quaker to the Shepherdess and Kitty Fisher, and thence to the Werter, the Lunardi, and Parachute.
1836. Dickens, Pickw., x. You Rachael … get on your bonnet and come back.
1881. Grant White, Eng. Without & W., ii. 55. A bonnet has strings, I believe, and a hat has not.
e. Her. The velvet cap within a coronet.
f. Bonnet rouge (Fr.): the red cap of the French sans-culottes of 1793, taken as a type of the revolutionary spirit.
1815. Scribbleomania, 213. Gallia’s red bonnet de nuit.
1835. Marryat, Olla Podr., xix. The province … was among the first to receive … the bonnet rouge.
2. Naut. An additional piece of canvas laced to the foot of a sail to catch more wind. (It appears to have been formerly laced to the top of the sail, or to have been itself a top-sail.) Hence To vale (or vail) a bonnet: cf. 1 a.
1399. Langl., Rich. Redeless, IV. 72. They bente on a bonet, and bare a topte saile Affor þe wynde ffresshely to make a good ffare.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 3657. They … trussene upe sailes, Bot bonettez one brede.
1483. Cath. Angl., 36. A Bonet of a saille; superus.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, V. xiv. 4. Fessyn bonettis beneth the mane sale doun.
1613. Purchas, Pilgr., VIII. iii. 740.
a. 1618. Raleigh, Invent. Shipping, 16. We have lately added the Bonnett, and the Drabler.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., vii. 31. We say, lash on the bonet to the course, because it is made fast with Latchets into the eylot holes of the saile, as the Drabler is to it, and vsed as the wind permits.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789).
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxv. 84. A storm-jib with the bonnet off.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., s.v., Bonnets have lately been introduced to secure the foot of an upper topsail to a lower-topsail yard.
1884. G. C. Davies, Norfolk Broads, iv. 29.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., XXXVI. xvi. Her bonet she vayled, and gan to stryke sayle.
a. 1529. Skelton, Agst. Venom. Tongues, Wks. I. 133. Then let them vale a bonet of their proud sayle.
3. Fortification. A portion of the works at any salient angle, raised 2 or 3 feet in height on the parapet between the guns. It assists in protecting from enfilade fire and ricochet.
1700. Rycaut, Hist. Turks, III. 322. The Turks had formed a mine under the Bonnet.
1755. Johnson, Bonnet, a kind of little ravelin, without any ditch, having a parapet three feet high, anciently placed before the points of the saliant angles of the glacis.
1877. Kinglake, Crimea, III. v. 364. Three out of the four remaining angles of the octagon were furnished with small bonnettes and barbettes.
4. The second stomach of ruminants.
1782. A. Monro, Compar. Anat. (ed. 3), 39. The second stomach … is called κεκρύφαλος reticulum, the bonnet, or king’s-hood.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., II. 11/1. The second stomach … has received the appellation of … bonnet.
† 5. A weel or snare for fish. Obs.
1715. trans. Pancirollus’ Rerum Mem., I. I. i. 5. They cast abundance of them [Shell-fish] into the Sea, in Weels or Bonnets for that purpose.
6. Applied to a protective covering or defence in various technical uses:
a. The cowl at the top of a lighthouse, chimney, ventilating shaft, etc.; b. A wire covering over the chimney of a locomotive engine or steamer to prevent the escape of sparks (chiefly in U.S. where wood is largely burnt for fuel); c. A covering over the cage in mines for protection against objects falling down the shaft; d. A protecting cap for a safety lamp; e. An iron plate covering the openings in the valve-chambers of a pump.
1862. J. Blight, Wk. Land’s End, 93. The bonnet or corvel which crowns the structure [a lighthouse].
1880. Print. Times, 59/2. It is advisable to have a large cover or ‘bonnet’ for the [melting] pot.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss.
1883. E. Ingersoll, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 198/2. The wire bonnet of the smokestack is worn on one side.
1884. Athenæum, 25 Oct., 533/2. Safety lamps … fitted with ‘bonnets’ or protectors.
7. A plant; = BLUE-BONNET.
1883. J. A. Henshall, in Century Mag., 383/1. Saw-grass, water-lettuce, bonnets, or other aquatic plants.
8. A thing or person used to conceal or put a good face upon underhand proceedings; a pretended player at a gaming-table, or bidder at an auction, secretly in league with the proprietor or auctioneer to lure others to play or buy; a thimble-rigger’s accomplice; a decoy. Also fig.
[1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Bonnet, a concealment, pretext, or pretence; an ostensible manner of accounting for what you really mean to conceal.]
1833. Fraser’s Mag., VIII. 342. His look and bearing are positively those of a bonnet at a fashionable hell.
1860. All Y. Round, No. 41. 341. A sly smile, such as a thimble-rig man greets his ‘bonnet’ with.
1877. Besant & Rice, Son of Vulc., I. vii. 80. He [schoolmaster] is looking out for more boys. Ah, Myles! what a lovely bonnet that child of yours would make!
1884. Sir S. Northcote, in Parl. (Times, 2 April, 8/5). My noble friend [Ld. R. Churchill] is very adroit and agile in the positions he has taken up, but this is the first time I have seen him perform the part of ‘bonnet’ to the Government.
1885. Morn. Post, 5 Sept., 7/3. There was no distinct evidence to connect him with a conspiracy to defraud…. He might have been used as a sort of ‘bonnet’ to conceal the utter worthlessness of propositions made by the others.
9. Phrases. To have a bee in one’s bonnet: see BEE1 5. To fill a person’s bonnet: to fill his place, equal him in any respect. To rive the bonnet of: to excel (Jamieson). To have a green bonnet: to have failed in business (Ogilvie).
1726. Poems Comp. Archers, 33 (Jam.). May every archer strive to fill His bonnet … And praise like him deserve.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xvii. ‘He’s but a daidling coward body. He’ll never fill Rumbleberry’s bonnet.’
10. Comb., as bonnet-basket, -box, -folder, -lining, -maker, -sewing, -string; bonnet-fluke Sc., a fish, the Brill; bonnet-headed a. (Arch.), of a window in which the outside of the arch is more splayed than the jambs; † bonnet-laird Sc., a petty proprietor in Scotland, wearing a bonnet like the humbler classes; bonnet-limpet, the genus Pileopsis of gasteropodous mollusks, so called from the shape of the shell; bonnet-macaque, bonnet-monkey, a kind of monkey (Macacus Sinicus), so called from the arrangement of the hairs on its head; bonnet-man, the wearer of a bonnet, a Highlander; bonnet-pepper, a kind of Capsicum, with fruit shaped like a Scotch bonnet; bonnet-piece, a gold coin of James V. of Scotland, on which the effigy of the sovereign is represented wearing a bonnet; bonnet-shape, the frame-work of a bonnet.
1871. Memb. for Paris, I. 259. Papers, which had lain hidden in one of her *bonnet-boxes.
1879. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit., I. 278. The *bonnet-headed window may be seen at Holy Trinity Church, Colchester.
1816. Scott, Antiq., iv. It belonged to auld Johnnie Howie, a *bonnet-laird hard by.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports & Adv. Scotl., i. (1855), 23. The humbler pinnace of a ‘bonnet-laird.’
1876. Wallace, Distrib. Anim., II. 511. The … *Bonnet-limpets, are found on the coasts of all seas from Norway to Chili and Australia.
1826. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. III. (1863), 523. A blush that makes her *bonnet-lining pale.
1530. Palsgr., 199/2. *Bonnet maker, bonnettier.
1811. C. James, Mil. Dict. (1816), 57/1. Bonnet worn by the Highlanders, hence called *Bonnet-men.
1702. Bp. Nicolson, Sc. Hist. Libr., 300 (Jam.). The common gold coins of this reign well known by the name of *Bonnet Pieces.
c. 1817. Hogg, Tales & Sk., VI. 284. I will halve this bonnet-piece of gold between us.
1837. Dickens, Sk. Boz (1850), 38/1. One [shop] was a *bonnet-shape maker’s. Ibid. (1848), Dombey, vi. Do untie your *bonnet-strings and make yourself at home.
