Other forms: sunniest
Sunny means bright with unbroken sunshine. A sunny day, a sunny room, sunny intervals.
In British forecasts the gradations matter: sunny, sunny intervals, sunny spells and bright all mean slightly different amounts, and everybody has an opinion about which is which. Of a person, sunny means cheerful and even-tempered: a sunny disposition, a sunny nature. Note the sunny side, both of a street and of a situation; sunny side up, meaning a fried egg not turned over; and sunnies, Australian for sunglasses.
1adjectivesunnyBright with unbroken sunshine.
“It was sunny all morning and torrential by two.”
2adjectivecheerfulCheerful and even-tempered.
“She has a sunny nature and it has been tested.”
sunny is a quality of brightness.
Sunny is sun plus -y, one of the oldest and simplest patterns in English. The same ending gives cloudy, windy, rainy and frosty, which is most of a British weather forecast built from four nouns.
Old English
*sunniġ
Middle English
sunni
English, today
sunny
From Middle English sunni, from Old English sunniġ. Cognate with West Frisian sinnich, Low German sünnig, sonnig, Dutch zonnig, German sonnig. Equivalent to sun + -y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA