To ask what bonny means when describing a baby?

[Oysterbabe]

I'd never heard it before having kids. Everyone keeps telling me DD is bonny. I'm not 100% on what it means. Does it mean fat?
She does have lovely chubby cheeks and thighs that you just can't help but squidge.

Where I grew up (north west England) it meant pretty and fat (rather than ugly and fat or pretty and slender).

For a baby I always thought it meant chubby with lovely squidgy legs.
For an older child/adult it meant attractive.

Aww, my she is bonny!

My Grandma from Yorkshire said it meaning good looking.
Here in Wales it means fat.

It means rosy cheeks and cute, nothing negative.

I think if someone calls a baby bonny they mean a chubster. But a positive chubster. And IMO all babies should be chubsters, and the cutest ones certainly are.

I don't think people who get their baby called bonny by strangers in the supermarket should kid themselves that the speaker is saying the baby is exceptionally beautiful. They are saying the baby is chubby!

It's 100% a compliment. If someone (Scottish) described me as bonny I'd feel great.

Gorgeous and for babies covered in a layer of baby chub, rather than scrawny.
DD was considered bonny, her thigh rolls were so tight we had to drive in to get the fluff our!

OP - your baby is gorgeous. The epitome of a beautiful bonny baby.

Flipping predictive text. Dive in to get the fluff out.

Totally thought it meant happy/alert. That's educated again thanks to MN

Scottish background here....bonny always meant a lovely looking baby, certainly not size related.

In Scotland it means pretty, no implication of fat at all, perhaps a general feeling of wholesome healthiness. Days can be bonnie, flowers can be bonnie and Scotland itself is of course bonnie.

My Yorkshire granny (born at the turn of last century) used it as a euphemism for fat.
But in her day chubbiness was a sign of health, especially desirable in babies.

I always thought it meant beautiful. Never fat

I'm from Lancashire and only know it as beautiful never as fat.

Here it definitely means chubby and content. As in a baby who looks well fed and happy. My DD was always described as bonny baby by the midwife, HV and GP and it was obvious that they all mean she was chubby as it was always as they were squidging the flesh on her arms or thighs!

bonny
adjective bon·ny \ˈbä-nē\

Simple Definition of bonny

: very pretty or attractive

Source: Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary

I think it means pretty but with an added element of healthy looking and twinkly iykwim

And she is bonny, bless her!

It meant beautiful, to my Nan, born 1910, Liverpool.

But it also meant thriving (in a time when a lot of baby's didn't) and 'weighty' babies, thrived and lived, so even if it does mean chubby, it is meant in a healthy/good way. This was when most WC families lost at least on child, usually from Flu or TB.

My Nan also used to comment that "you didn't see children with such good colour and healthy hair" when she was young/had her children (first born 1928). She had no rose tinted spectacles.

it means attractive looking, pleasing to the eye.

bonny baby
bonny lass
bonny boy

but never bonny old person, no matter how well groomed they are

Definitely a compliment on a happy, healthy, attractive child.

I've always thought it meant cute/happy/lovely. Never associated it with chubby.

I've found its just a generic term used on new new babies Forsomething to say!
Can mean healthy looking, chubby, pretty, fat, anything really.

cute and fat, YY