Word.ws English Dictionary

bunny boiler

Syllables: bun·ny boil·erUK/ˈbʌni ˈbɔɪlə//ˈbʌni ˈbɔɪlɚ/

bunny boiler noun: a person who acts (or may supposedly act) obsessively or even dangerously towards another person with whom they were previously, or wish to be, in a relationship.

Noun

bunny boiler (plural bunny boilers)

  1. (derogatory, humorous, slang) A person who acts (or may supposedly act) obsessively or even dangerously towards another person with whom they were previously, or wish to be, in a relationship.
    • Witness such media events as the Great Old Maid Scare of '86 (sparked by a study suggesting that a woman who hasn't married by age forty has less chance of doing so than of being shot by a terrorist); and the Fatal Attraction Syndrome (the notion that unmarried career women are so unfulfilled they...[1988, Glamour, volume 86, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 159
    • There's nothing like portraying a psychopathic bunny-boiler to boost one's self-esteem, Glenn Close tells Ladies' Home Journal.[1990 December 6, The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Tex.: The Dallas Morning News, →ISSN, →OCLC, page A2, column 3

Examples of bunny boiler in a sentence

  • Bunny Boilers take the fun out of shagging.2001, Sam Priest, “Beware of ‘Bunny Boilers’”, in Shagging for America: (Unwritten Rules for Unrepentant Males), New York, N.Y.: Hangover...
  • Neither should we think that Bunny Boilers are always female—this is not the case.2014 March 5, Rosie Andrews, “Foreword”, in Strange Creatures, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, pages 4–5:

Forms of bunny boiler

pluralbunny boilers
alternative formbunny-boiler

Origin of bunny boiler

From a scene in the 1987 film Fatal Attraction where a scorned woman (played by Glenn Close), seeking revenge on her ex-lover (played by Michael Douglas), places his family’s beloved pet rabbit in a pot of boiling water when he is away from the house.

Words that rhyme with bunny boiler

Questions about bunny boiler

What does bunny boiler mean?
Bunny boiler means a person who acts (or may supposedly act) obsessively or even dangerously towards another person with whom they were previously, or wish to be, in a relationship.
How do you use bunny boiler in a sentence?
Bunny Boilers take the fun out of shagging.
What part of speech is bunny boiler?
Bunny boiler is a noun.
How do you pronounce bunny boiler?
Bunny boiler is pronounced /ˈbʌni ˈbɔɪlə/ (UK).
What is the plural of bunny boiler?
The plural of bunny boiler is bunny boilers.

Words near bunny boiler in the dictionary

  1. bunning
  2. bunnings
  3. bunnock
  4. bunns
  5. bunny
  6. bunny boiler
  7. bunny boilers
  8. bunny boot
  9. bunny boots
  10. bunny buster
  11. bunny busters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bunny boiler (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-bunny boiler.wav.

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