Bonnet

How to spell bonnet

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bonnet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bonnet mean?

1. nounA soft hat, often tied under the chin, worn by a woman or a young child.
2. nounThe hinged metal panel covering the engine of a car.

Bonnet in a sentence

• The baby wore a knitted bonnet to keep warm in the pram.

• He lifted the bonnet to check the oil level before the long drive.

• She fastened the ribbons of her straw bonnet before the garden party.

• Steam poured out the moment the mechanic opened the bonnet.

Where does bonnet come from?

Language of origin: French

Bonnet arrived in English from Old French bonet, which referred to a soft cloth used to make a brimless cap, and behind that lies the Medieval Latin word abonnis, meaning a kind of headgear. By the late 1300s English speakers were using it for a soft head covering, and over the centuries it narrowed to mean a hat tied under the chin, of the sort worn by women and infants, as well as the traditional Scottish cap. In the early twentieth century British engineers borrowed the same image of a covering and applied it to the hinged metal lid over a car engine, which is why the British and Canadian motoring term is bonnet while Americans say hood. The doubled inner consonant and the unstressed second syllable that fades to a faint schwa are the small traps in the spelling. A familiar relative is the French phrase used in fashion, but the everyday English word has stayed close to its original sense of something soft worn on the head.

How the word is built

• bonnet (from Old French bonet: cloth used for a hat)