Other forms: honeys
Honey is what bees make and what you spread on toast — thick, golden and sweet. It is one of the oldest words in English and has barely changed shape in a thousand years.
It is also what people call somebody they love, especially in American English: pass me the salt, honey. That use is warm and slightly informal, and it is common enough in films and songs that you will meet it early. Honeymoon comes from the same root, by way of the sweetness of a first month of marriage.
1nounhoneyThe golden sweet liquid that bees make.~98%
“He spread honey on his toast.”
2noundearAn affectionate name for somebody you love.~2%
“Pass me the salt, honey.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 12 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Proto-Indo-European
*kn̥h₂onk-o-s
Proto-Germanic
*hunagą
Proto-West Germanic
*hunag
Old English
huniġ
Middle English
hony
English, today
honey
From Middle English hony, from Old English huniġ, from Proto-West Germanic hunag, from Proto-Germanic hunagą (compare stq Hunich, West Frisian hunich, German Low German Honnig, German Honig), from earlier hunangą (compare frr honning, hönning, West Frisian huning, Dutch honing, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk honning, Swedish honung, Faroese hunangur, Icelandic hunang), from Proto-Indo-European kn̥h₂onk-o-s, from kn̥h₂ónks. Cognate with wlm canecon (“gold”), Latin canicae (“bran”), txb kronkśe (“bee”), Albanian qengjë (“beehive”), Ancient Greek κνῆκος (“safflower”), kmr şan (“beehive”), lrc گونج (“bee”), Finnish hunaja.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA