Forms: 4–9 bon, 4–7 bone, 4–5 bonne, (6 boun), 6–7 boone, (7 boune), 4– boon. [a. OF. bon, bone good: used esp. in what were orig. French phrases (e.g., bone chere, bon sire, bone order, bon voiage, bone fortune, etc.), but to some extent in general Eng. use from 14th to 17th c.; after 1600 it seems to have been consciously recognized as French, and gradually dropped, exc. in senses 3 and 4. In sense 3 it was probably associated with the Eng. sb. BOON1, in its later sense of ‘favor, benefaction, good gift.’]
A. adj.
† 1. Good, goodly. Obs. (in 17th c.)
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., A. 28. He schal loke on oure lorde with a bone chere.
c. 1325. Coer de L., 1540. They come to cyte boon.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, 1022. Seint Iulian! lo, bon hostelle!
c. 1425. Seven Sages (P.), 1013. Maugré have thow, bone sire.
c. 1435. Torr. Portugal, 2143. Of speche he is fulle bone.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. cccxcix. 692. Euery man drewe in bone order into the feldes.
1537. Latimer, 2nd Serm. bef. Convoc. Let vs all make bon chere [ed. 1635 good cheer].
1617. J. Taylor (Water P.), Trav., Wks. (1630), III. 78/1. Four pots of boone beere as yellow as gold.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 302. Nicolaus Damascenus; a great Orator and boon pleader.
1686. W. de Britaine, Hum. Prudence, xviii. (ed. 3), 83. I am of that boon Courage.
† 2. Advantageous, fortunate, favorable, prosperous: esp. in the once universal phrase boon voyage prosperous journey, also fig. good success. Hence, To drink upon or in boon voyage. Obs.
1494. Fabyan, VI. ccx. 225. One broughte forthe a bolle full of mede … to drynke vpon bon vyage.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M., I. 384/2. Drinking one to another in boun voyage of the spoil of them whom they would take as their prisoners.
1590. Greene, Never too Late, Wks. 1882, VIII. 20. I may wish boone fortune to thy iourney.
1631. Heywood, Maid of West, IV. Wks. 1874, II. 311. Quaffe unto the health of our boone voyage.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett., I. i. iv. (1726), 21. At first was like to be such a hopeful boon Voyage.
1657. S. Purchas, Pol. Flying-Ins., 329. These cunning Philosophers … can … with Judas embrace a man with a courtly boone-congee, and at parting cut a mans throat.
[1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxxii. Bon voyage as they say.]
3. Gracious, bounteous, benign; = L. almus, alma. poetic.
a. 1612. Harington, Epigr., II. (1633), 50. Our boon God did benignly heare.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 242. Flours … which … Nature boon Powrd forth profuse.
c. 1800. K. White, Poems (1837), 146. But may all nature smile with aspect boon.
1814. Cary, Dante (Chandos), 301. Its boon influence.
1841. Emerson, Method Nat., Wks. 1875, II. 224. This wasteful hospitality with which boon nature turns off new firmaments.
1869. M. Arnold, Switzerl., III. Farewell, xxi. How sweet to feel, on the boon air, All our unquiet pulses cease!
4. In boon companion, lit. ‘good-fellow,’ used in a jovial bacchanalian sense, transferred to other phrases, and occas. predicatively: Jolly, convivial.
1566. Drant, Med. Morall, A v. He is my bone companion, its he that cheares up me.
1604. Meet. of Gallants at Ord., 21. A boone companion lighted amongst good fellowes, as they call good fellowes now a dayes, which are those that can drink best.
1622. Dekker & Massinger, Virg. Martyr, II. i. Bacchus … this boon Bacchannalian skinker.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 793. Hight’nd as with Wine, jocond and boon.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull (1755), 6. A boon companion, loving his bottle and his diversion.
1827. Lytton, Pelham, xiv. He was also the boonest of companions.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxi. (1856), 268. The effort of each man to … be very boon and jolly.
1884. Tennyson, Becket, 61. My comrade, boon companion, my co-reveller.
b. Hence boon companionship; boonfellow (treated as a single word).
1844. Disraeli, Coningsby, I. v. 23. All the resources of boon companionship.
1876. G. Meredith, Beauch. Career, II. ix. 171. A good friend and not a bad boonfellow.
† B. adv. Well, gently, favorably.
Old Song, ‘Oh! firm as Oak,’ While boon the wind blows, And smooth the tide flows.
