Bouncy means springing back readily, or full of lively energy. A bouncy ball, a bouncy castle, bouncy and cheerful.
The physical sense is about how much energy a thing returns rather than how far it goes. A bouncy castle is the British name for the inflatable Americans call a bounce house. Of a person it is affectionate and means relentlessly cheerful.
1adjectivebouncySpringing back readily, or full of lively energy.
“The dog chased the bouncy rubber ball all over the garden.”
bouncy is a quality.
Middle English
bounsen
English
bounce
English, today
bouncy
Built from
From bounce + -y. bounce comes from Middle English bounsen, bunsen (“to beat, thump”), cognate with Scots bunce, bonce (“to bounce”). Of unknown origin. Perhaps imitative of the sound, related to bump, or related to Middle English bonchen (“to pound, beat”) and Dutch bonken (“to bump”). Compare stq bumzje (“to pound, bang, bounce”), West Frisian bûnzje (“to throb, bounce, pulsate”), Dutch bonzen (“to thump, knock, throb, bounce”), German Low German bunsen, bumsen (“to beat, bounce”), German bumsen (“to thud, bang, pound”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA