• IPA: /buːn/

From Middle English boon, from Old Norse bón, from Proto-Germanic *bōniz, influenced by boon ("good, favorable").

boon (plural boons)

1. 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.

   • 2023 July 21, Patrick Kingsley, “What’s Reasonable? A Debate Over a High Court’s Reach Divides Israel.”, in The New York Times‎^{[https://web.archive.org/web/20230725162156/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/world/middleeast/israel-supreme-court-netanyahu.html]}, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN ↗, →OCLC ↗, archived from the original ↗ on 2023-07-25:

     Supporters of the measure, which Parliament is expected to vote on next Monday, present it as a boon for democracy: a modest limit on the ways in which an elected government can be stymied by unelected judges, who will in any case still have other tools to overrule ministers.

2. (archaic) That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift or benefaction.
   • 1871, James De Mille, The Cryptogram, New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC ↗, page 194 ↗, column 2:

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

3. (obsolete) A prayer; petition.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗, stanza 34, page 503 ↗:

     The wofull husbandman doth lowd complaine, / To ſee his whole yeares labor loſt ſo ſoone, / For which to God he made ſo many an idle boone.

4. (Britain, dialectal) An unpaid service due by a tenant to his lord.
5. (Hindu mythology) A blessing, typically a supernatural power, granted to an ascetic by a god or goddess.
   • 2007, Klaus Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism: Third Edition, New York: State University of New York Press, page 38 ↗:

     A telling story is that of Vikra, who, after practicing severe tapas for many years, called on Śiva, asking him to grant the boon that whosoever's head he would touch, that person would die instantly.

• (a thing received) See Thesaurus:gift
• (a good thing) blessing; benefit

• bane

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

• French: bénédiction
• German: Gabe, Gunst, Gefälligkeit, Wohltat, Geschenk
• Russian: дар

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

From Middle English boon, bone, borrowed from fro-nor boon, from Old French bon, from Latin bonus, from itc-ola duonus, dvenos, from Proto-Indo-European *dū-.

boon (comparative booner, superlative boonest)

1. (now only in boon companion) Gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IX ↗”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗, lines 791-794:

     Greedily ſhe ingorg’d without restraint, / And knew not eating Death: Satiate at length, / And hight’nd as with Wine, jocond and boon, / Thus to herſelf ſhe pleaſingly began.

   • 1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “How the Guardians of the Deceas’d Mrs. Bull’s Three Daughters Came to John, and What Advice They Gave Him; wherein in Briefly Treated the Characters of the Three Daughters: Also John Bull’s Answer to the Three Guardians”, in John Bull in His Senses: Being the Second Part of Law is a Bottomless-Pit. […], Edinburgh: […] James Watson, […], →OCLC ↗, page 30 ↗:

     I knovv the Infirmity of our Family; vve are apt to play the Boon-Companion, and throvv avvay our Money in our Cups: […]

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “In or Near the Temple Garden”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC ↗, page 110 ↗:

     I’m a lonely old man; I lead a life that I don’t like, among boon companions, who make me melancholy.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16: Eumaeus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC ↗, part III [Nostos], page 576 ↗:

     ―No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher, and friend, if I were in your shoes.

   • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC ↗:

     [T]he boon twins Art and Con aged thirty-seven years […]

   • 1985, Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics), Les Misérables (musical), "Master of the House," second and third refrains, fifth line:

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

2. (archaic) Kind; bountiful; benign.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV ↗”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗, lines 239-243:

     With mazie error under pendant ſhades / Ran Nectar, viſiting each plant, and fed /Flours worthy of Paradiſe which not nice Art / In Beds and curious Knots, but Nature boon / Powrd forth profuſe on Hill and Dale and Plaine, / […]

3. (obsolete) Good; prosperous.

   boon voyage

• Russian: до́брый

• Russian: весёлый

From Middle English bone, akin to or alteration of Old English bune.

boon (uncountable)

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

• shive, shove

1. Surname
2. A twp in Warrick County, Indiana, named after settler Ratcliff Boon.
3. A twp/and/ucomm therein, in Wexford County.