• IPA: /buːn/

boon (plural boons)

1. (obsolete) A prayer; petition.

   • For which to God he made so many an idle boon […]

2. (archaic) That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift or benefaction.
   • 1881, The Bible (English Revised Version), James 1:17:

     Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above […]

   • 1872, James De Mille, The Cryptogram:^{[http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/4/3/28435/28435-h/28435-h.htm ]}

     I gave you life. Can you not return the boon by giving me death, my lord?

3. A good thing; a blessing or benefit; a thing to be thankful for.

   Finding the dry cave was a boon to the weary travellers.

   Anaesthetics are a great boon to modern surgery.

4. (UK dialectal) An unpaid service due by a tenant to his lord.

• (a thing received) See gift and favor
• (a good thing) blessing; benefit

• bane

• French: aubaine
• German: Segen, Wohltat, Gnade, Gunst
• Portuguese: bênção
• Russian: бла́го
• Spanish: bendición, ventaja

• German: Gabe, Gunst, Gefälligkeit, Wohltat
• Russian: дар

• German: Gebet, Gesuch, Bittschrift, Bitte, Eingabe, Bittgesuch
• Russian: мольба́
• Spanish: oración

boon (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Good; prosperous.

   boon voyage

2. Kind; bountiful; benign.
   • John Milton

     Which […] Nature boon / Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.

3. Now only in boon companion: gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
   • John Arbuthnot

     a boon companion, loving his bottle

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630 ↗; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483 ↗:

     Episode 16

     --No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, if I were in your shoes.

   • Les Misérables (musical), "Master of the House," second and third refrains, fifth line:

     (2) "Everybody's boon companion, / Everybody's chaperon#French|chaperon"; (3) "Everybody's boon companion: / Give[s] 'em everything he's got"

• bounty

• Russian: до́брый

• Russian: весёлый

boon (uncountable)

1. The woody portion of flax, separated from the fiber as refuse matter by retting, braking, and scutching.

• shive#Etymology_2|shive, shove