bonify

/ˈbəʊnɪfaɪ/

bonify verb: to convert into―or make―good; to improve.

Verb (1)

bonify (third-person singular simple present bonifies, present participle bonifying, simple past and past participle bonified)

(transitive) To convert into―or make―good; to improve.
- to bonify evils, or tincture them with good1678, R[alph] Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: […]...
- The inventor has (of course) been decorated, and, I am informed, has received a handsome pension from Napoleon III, who, like his great uncle, loves and cherishes every invention tending to bonify and superiorise—let me be allowed the expression—his navy.1854, A. R. Reeves, “Progress of the Inventive Art in France and in England”, in Ainsworth's Magazine, volume 25, page 205
To remit or reduce a price, typically in order to compensate for a tax for fee.
- With the help of a surtax of 11 florins per 100 kilos., the refiners fix the home price at a level which enables them to bonify the manufacturers for all that is sold at home, and the exporters for all that is sent abroad.1902, Benjamin Taylor, “Sugar and the Convention”, in The Fortnightly, volume 77, page 639
- Bills due on a Sunday or holiday become due on the preceding day; the seller has to bonify the bill stamp necessary in the country where the bill is payable.1904, Henry Deutsch, Arbitrage in Bullion, Coins, Bills, Stocks, Shares and Options, page 74

bonify (third-person singular simple present bonifies, present participle bonifying, simple past and past participle bonified)

(rare) To make bony; to ossify or to pare down to the bones.
- The inhabitants of Albion at the harvest & the vintage Feel their brain cut round beneath the temples, shrieking, Bonifying into a skull, the marrow exuding in dismal pain.1820, William Blake, Jerusalem
- The are beginning to ossify, or bonify, if we may make a word.1896, Mary Wood-Allen, The Marvels of Our Bodily Dwelling, page 21

A flask suffices to perfume, bonify, and age, a hogshead (barrique) of wine.1856, Charles John Huffam Dickens, “The Hall of Wines”, in Household Words:
They would not come up beyond 1/2⅞, and we will bonify ⅛ in order to keep them on this yarn.1916, Reports of Tax Cases - Volume 6, page 112:
As soon as the cartilage is formed from the fibrous tissue the osteoblasts, which carry in their protoplasm the calcium salts, deposit their contents along the blood stream and so bonify the tissue.1913, P.A. Strerath, “Calcium in its Physiology and its Therapeutical Value”, in The Medical Fortnightly, volume 43, page 513:

third-person singular present	bonifies
present participle	bonifying
past participle	bonified
past	bonified
alternative form	bonafy

From French bonifier.

From bone + -ify.

What does bonify mean?: Bonify means to convert into―or make―good; to improve.
How do you use bonify in a sentence?: A flask suffices to perfume, bonify, and age, a hogshead (barrique) of wine.
What part of speech is bonify?: Bonify is a verb.
How do you pronounce bonify?: Bonify is pronounced /ˈbəʊnɪfaɪ/.
What is the past tense of bonify?: The past tense of bonify is bonified.

Adapted from Wiktionary: bonify (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “bonify.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bonify. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.