▪ I. sonny colloq.
(ˈsʌnɪ)
Also sonnie.
[f. son n.1 + -y.]
1. a. A familiar term of address to a boy or to a man younger than the speaker.
| 1870 Routledge's Ev. Boy's Ann. 688 Yes, my dear sonny, that is exactly what I mean. 1883 Stevenson Treas. Isl. ii, ‘Come here, sonny,’ says he. 1891 Clark Russell Curatica i, ‘Oh!’ said my mother, ‘just the very thing! Listen, sonnie!’ |
b. A small boy.
| 1850 Knickerbocker XXXVI. 288 ‘Pa’ returned towards the cars; when ‘sonny’, quickly drawing his pocket-pistol, took a drink. 1939 Joyce Finnegans Wake 335 How Holispolis went to Parkland with mabby and sammy and sonny and sissy and mop's varlet de shambles. 1967 [see mummy n.2 2]. |
2. Comb. sonny boy, from the title of a popular song, a boy; a man younger than the speaker or writer; freq. as a term of address and with disparaging sense; also attrib.; sonny Jim: see sunny Jim s.v. sunny a. 5 c.
| 1928 A. Jolson et al. Sonny Boy (song) 3 Climb upon my knee, Sonny Boy; You are only three, Sonny Boy. 1937 [see over-compensate v.]. 1942 Gen 15 June 36/2 So you lay off taking the mike out of women, sonny-boys. 1955 W. Gaddis Recognitions iii. iv. 850 Lie back and don't try to remember everything now, sonny boy. 1956 H. Gold Man who was not with It (1965) x. 79 A sonnyboy trust that I had the right to be helpless. 1970 Washington Post 30 Sept. d1/6 When you're the youngest of four children, ‘you know, folks call you like you're a sonny boy, and it stuck to me’. 1978 T. Allbeury Lantern Network xii. 191 What do you want, sonny boy?.. I don't trust you, you English bastard. |
▪ II. sonny
obs. form of sunny a.