[Etymology unknown: connection with the prec. is not very likely. Cf. BUNNY.] A name given sportively a. to the squirrel. b. to the rabbit (dial.). c. Also used as a term of endearment.
1587. Churchyard, Worth. Wales (1876), 57. Her Squirrell lept away … she sought to stay The little pretie Bun.
c. 1614. Drayton, Moon Calf, Wks. (1748), 178. She was wont to call him … her pretty bun.
1847–78. Halliw., Bun, a rabbit. Var. dial.
1857. Emerson, Poems, 155. The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel; And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig’; Bun replied, ‘You are doubtless very big.’
