a bunny by any other name

I like words. I like finding out where they come from, and the stories that often follow along behind them.

For some reason yesterday I was wondering about the word bunny and where that got tacked onto rabbit. Turns out many dedicated word scholars wonder the same thing. For example, here's a sample of what the British website World Wide Words has to say on this: "There is a suggestion that the word may have originally referred to the small tail of the rabbit, in the same way that a tight coil of hair at the back of the neck was also called a bun, because both were roughly the shape and size of the cake. " Rest of the discussion here.

The word was also used as a term of endearment for a woman or child, as in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, when he remarks to his wife that he thought their daughter's hair was a different color "when she were a bunny." (Not giving away spoiler here.)

And just for fun, here's Bunny Stamps of the World.