honey

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A sweet, viscous, gold-colored fluid produced from plant nectar by bees, and often consumed by humans.

   The honey in the pot should last for years.

2. 2
   noun

   A variety of this substance.

   The physical properties of the different honeys, color, granulation, aroma, flavor, etc., are indicated in the table only in a very general way.

3. 3
   noun

   Something sweet or desirable.

   O my love, my wife! / Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath / Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

4. 4
   noun

   A term of affection.

   Honey, would you take out the trash?

5. 5
   noun

   A woman, especially an attractive one.

   Man, there are some fine honeys here tonight!

6. 6
   adj

   Involving or resembling honey.

   So work the honey-bees, / Creatures that by a rule in nature teach / The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

7. 7
   adj

   Of a pale yellow to brownish-yellow color, like most types of honey.

   Then I looked close at the scalp he stroked, which was of the silkiest blonde. For a moment I was sure it come from Olga’s dear head, and reckoned also he had little Gus’s fine skull-cover someplace among his filthy effects, the stinking old savage, living out his life of murder, rapine, and squalor, and I almost knifed him before I collected myself and realized the hair was honeyer than my Swedish wife’s.

8. 8
   adj

   Honey-sweet.

   But he answered the question with the honiest—Bohemian honey—of smiles: […]

Etymology

From Middle English hony, honi, from Old English huniġ, from Proto-West Germanic *hunag, from Proto-Germanic *hunagą (compare Saterland Frisian Hunich, West Frisian hunich, German Low German Honnig, German Honig), from earlier *hunangą (compare North Frisian honning, hönning, West Frisian huning, Dutch honing, Swedish honung), from Proto-Indo-European *kn̥h₂onk-o-s, from *kn̥h₂ónks. Cognate with Middle Welsh canecon (“gold”), Latin canicae pl (“bran”), Tocharian B kronkśe (“bee”), Albanian qengjë (“beehive”), Ancient Greek κνῆκος (knêkos, “safflower”), Northern Kurdish şan (“beehive”), Norther…