boon

/buːn/

boon noun: a good thing; a thing to be thankful for or to appreciate duly.

Noun (1)

boon (plural boons)

A good thing; a thing to be thankful for or to appreciate duly.
- Near-synonyms: gift; blessing, benefit; see also Thesaurus:gift
- Finding the dry cave was a boon to the weary travellers.
Synonyms:

gift, blessing, benefit, benefaction, concession, donative, fairing, grant, present, tithing

Antonyms:

bane
That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift or benefaction.
- I gave you life. Can you not return the boon by giving me death, my lord?1871, James De Mille, The Cryptogram, New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, page 194, column 2
- Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.1881, English Revised Version, The New Testament, in the revised version of 1881, with fuller references, Oxford: Oxford University Press, published 1910, James 1:17, page 548
(obsolete) A prayer; petition.
- 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.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 34, page 503
(UK, dialectal) An unpaid service due by a tenant to his lord.
(Hinduism) A blessing, typically a supernatural power, granted to an ascetic by a god or goddess.
- 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.2007, Klaus Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism: Third Edition, New York: State University of New York Press, page 38

Adjective

boon (comparative booner, superlative boonest)

Gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
- 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.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...
- I knovv the Infirmity of our Family; vve are apt to play the Boon-Companion, and throvv avvay our Money in our Cups: […]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...
(archaic) Kind; bountiful; benign.
- 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, / […]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...
(obsolete) Good; prosperous.
- boon voyage

Noun (2)

boon (uncountable)

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

Synonyms:

shive, shove

Proper noun capitalized: Boon

Boon

A surname
A township in Warrick County, Indiana, United States, named after settler Ratcliff Boon.
A township and unincorporated community therein, in Wexford County, Michigan, United States.

boon meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

boon in Hindi

boon: वरदान vardān
boon, godsend, as a result of virtue: पुण्य puṇya
boon, blessing: ग़नीमत ġanīmat, बर bar

boon in Tamil

a gift; a benefaction; a grant; a present: வரம் varam

boon in Urdu

boon, godsend, as a result of virtue: پنیہ punya
boon, blessing: غنیمت ġanīmat

More languagesFewer languages

boon in Bengali: আশীর্বাদ aśirbad, বরকত borkot, বর bor
boon in Telugu: వరము varamu, వరంబు varambu
boon in Malayalam: അനുഗ്രഹം
boon in Kannada: ಒಸಗೆ, ಕೊಡುಗೆ, ಹಾರಯ್ಕೆ, ವರ
boon in Punjabi: ور var, ਵਰ var, ਗ਼ਨੀਮਤ ġanīmat, غنیمت ġanīmat
boon in Sanskrit: वर vara, राधस् rādhas
boon in Nepali: बर bar
boon in Persian: نعمت ne'mat, موهبت movhebat

Examples of boon in a sentence

Anaesthetics are a great boon to modern surgery.
Developed as a tool to electronically combine the sharpest bits of multiple digital images, focus stacking is a boon to biologists seeking full focus on a micron scale.2013 July–August, Catherine Clabby, “Focus on Everything”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 4, archived from the original on 07...
Washington seems to relish long wars, which always prove a boon to its arms industries and a distraction from domestic troubles.2023 October 11, Jonathan Cook, “Israel-Palestine war: The blood of Gaza is on the West’s hands as much as Israel’s”, in Middle East Eye...
[T]he hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man[.]1949, Joseph Campbell, “The Hero and the God”, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
I’m a lonely old man; I lead a life that I don’t like, among boon companions, who make me melancholy.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “In or Near the Temple Garden”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II...

All 22 example sentences with boon

Synonyms of boon

2 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

bane

All synonyms and antonyms of boon

Forms of boon

Noun
plural	boons
Adjective
comparative	booner
superlative	boonest

Plural of boon: boons

Origin of boon

From Middle English boon (“prayer”), from Old Norse bón (“prayer, petition”), from Proto-Germanic *bōniz (“supplication”), influenced by boon (“good, favorable”, adjective). Doublet of ben; see there for more.

From Middle English boon, bone, borrowed from Old Northern French boon, from Old French bon (“good”), from Latin bonus (“good”), from Old Latin duonus, dvenos, from Proto-Indo-European *dū- (“to respect”).

From Middle English bone (“reed, stem, husk”), akin to or alteration of Old English bune (“reed; drinking cup”).

Words formed from boon

Phrases with boon

Words that rhyme with boon

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about boon

What does boon mean?: Boon means a good thing; a thing to be thankful for or to appreciate duly.
What is boon in Hindi?: Boon in Hindi is वरदान (vardān), पुण्य (puṇya), ग़नीमत (ġanīmat). See Boon meaning in Hindi.
How do you use boon in a sentence?: Anaesthetics are a great boon to modern surgery.
What part of speech is boon?: Boon can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce boon?: Boon is pronounced /buːn/.
What is the plural of boon?: The plural of boon is boons.

Words near boon in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-boon.wav.

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