▪ I. bunting, n.1
(ˈbʌntɪŋ)
Also 4 bountyng, 5 buntynge; cf. the variants bunkin, buntyle, buntlin.
[Origin unknown: Skeat suggests comparison with bunt v.2, Sc. buntin short and thick, plump (see 3), bunt n.5, Welsh bontin the rump, bontinog large-buttocked.]
1. a. The English name of a group of insessorial birds, the Emberizinæ, a sub-family of Fringillidæ allied to the larks. The chief species are the common b. (E. miliaris), also called corn b.; yellow b. (E. citrinella) = yellow-hammer; black-headed b.; reed b. (E. schœniclus); snow b. (Plectrophanes nivalis), a bird inhabiting the arctic regions, and visiting Britain in the winter; rice b. (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) = bobolink. See also cirl, ortolan 2 a, reed-bunting, snow-bunting.
| c 1300 in Wright Lyric P. xi. ix. 40 Ich wold ich were a threstelcok, A bountyng other a lavercok. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 56 Buntynge, byrde, pratellus. 1601 Shakes. All's Well ii. v. 7, I tooke this Larke for a bunting. 1655 Mouffet & Benn. Health's Improv. (1746) 188 Buntings feed chiefly upon little Worms. 1789 G. White Selborne xiii. (1853) 57 The bunting does not leave this country in the winter. 1878 Markham Gt. Frozen Sea xxiv. Great excitement was caused by the appearance of a snow bunting. |
b. Applied by extension to any bird of the bunting subfamily, and to similar birds of other families. U.S.
| 1831 Wilson & Bonaparte Amer. Ornith. II. 242 Black-throated Bunting... In their shape and manners they very much resemble the yellow-hammer of Britain. Ibid. 245 Fringilla Graminea,..Emberiza Graminea..Bay-winged Bunting. 1893 Newton Dict. Birds 459 Indigo-bird,..a well-known North-American species,..American ornithologists give full accounts of the habits of this bird, together with those of..the still more gaudy Painted Bunting. 1964 A. L. Thomson New Dict. Birds 112/1 The buntings (Emberizinae) are predominantly terrestrial. |
2. The grey shrimp (Crangon vulgaris).
| 1836 Scenes Comm. by Land & S. 92 Red shrimps, white shrimps, and buntings, or grey shrimps, of which the last are most esteemed for their flavour. |
3. A term of endearment: in ‘baby bunting’, the meaning (if there be any at all) may possibly be as in Jamieson's ‘buntin, short and thick, as a buntin brat, a plump child’.
| 1665 Davenant Wits iii. i, Bunting [to the speaker's wife] in very deed, You are to blame. Nursery Rime. Bye, baby bunting, Father's gone a hunting. |
4. attrib., esp. bunting lark, the corn bunting; also bunting-lark fly, an angler's fly.
| 1802 Montagu Ornith. Dict. I, Bunting-lark. 1837 Kirkbride Northern Angler 25 The Bunting Lark Fly. 1876 Encycl. Brit. IV. 525/2 The true Bunting (or Corn-Bunting, or Bunting-Lark, as it is called in some districts). 1884 Coues N. Amer. Birds (ed. 2) 356 Bill very small and truly conic, well exhibiting ‘emberizine’ or ‘bunting’ characters. |
▪ II. ˈbunting, n.2
Also 8–9 buntine.
[Origin uncertain: it has been conjecturally derived from bunt v.3 to sift, bolt. The analogy of the Fr. étamine, which means both bolting-cloth and bunting, supports this derivation, although there is no evidence that bunting was ever actually used for ‘bolting-cloth’. The fact mentioned in quot. 1836 would suggest connexion with Ger. bunt, Du. bont parti-coloured. (The word is not in Beawes Lex Mercatoria Rediviva 1752, which has always estamina, -as).]
a. ‘An open-made worsted stuff, used for making flags’ (Ure Dict. Arts); also in general, a flag, or flags collectively.
| 1742 Navy Board Letter to L.C.A. 24 Sept. (MS. in Pub. Rec. O.) The French and Spanish colours allowed his Majesty's Ships are of bunting, whereas those used by the French and Spanish are of linen. 1755 Johnson, Bunting, the stuff of which a ship's colours are made. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) Buntine, a thin woollen stuff, of which the colours and signals of a ship are usually formed. 1832 Marryat N. Forster xxxvi, Up goes her bunting. 1836 Scenes Comm. by Land & S. 235 Buntine is a thin open sort of woollen stuff..it is woven in stripes, blue, white, red. 1845 Darwin Voy. Nat. viii. (1879) 161 A net made of bunting. 1871 Pitman Phonogr. 7 Bunting, streaming from the masthead. |
b. attrib. bunting-tosser Naval slang, a signaller.
| 1905 Daily Chron. 23 Jan. 3/1 From which breathless catalogue it will be gathered that the path of the ‘bunting-tosser’ is not an easy one! 1909 in J. R. Ware Passing Eng. |
▪ III. ˈbunting, vbl. n.1
[f. bunt v.1 + -ing1.]
The bellying, bulging, or swelling of a sail, a net, etc.
| 1681 Phil. Collect. XII. No. 3. 62 Without any bellying, bunting, or curvity in the superficies thereof. |
▪ IV. bunting vbl. n.2
see bunt v.2
▪ V. bunting, ppl. a.
(ˈbʌntɪŋ)
[Of various origin: senses 1, 2, f. bunt v.1 + -ing2.]
1. Of a sail: Bellying, swelling.
| a 1702 R. Hooke in Phil. Trans. LXXIII. 141 To prefer bellying or bunting sails to such as were hauled taught. |
2. Swelling, plump; filled out, rounded, short and thick. (But bunting lamb may be from bunt v.2)
| 1584 Peele Arraignm. Paris i. i, I have brought a twagger for the nones, A bunting lamb. 1613 Markham Eng. Husbandman i. i. xvii. (1635) 108 Barley for your seede..elect that which is whitest, fullest, and roundest, being as the Plough-man calles it, a full bunting Corne. 1808–25 Jamieson Dict., Buntin, short and thick; as a buntin brat, a plump child, Roxb. |
3. ? Resembling a rabbit's bunt: short and cocked.
| 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 259/2 The stork..hath but a short bunting Tail. |
4. ? Untidy, tawdry.
| 1759 Compl. Lett.-Writer (ed. 6) 224 A large Pattern embroider'd Gown..which..was unfashionable and bunting. 1839 C. Clark J. Noakes 13 When yow saa Mary drest, Nought she had on look'd bunting. |