bonanza
Americannoun
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bonanzas
plural
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a rich mass of ore, as found in mining.
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a source of great and sudden wealth or luck; a spectacular windfall.
The play proved to be a bonanza for its lucky backers.
noun
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a source, usually sudden and unexpected, of luck or wealth
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a mine or vein rich in ore
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of bonanza
An Americanism first recorded in 1835–45; from Spanish: “calm sea, prosperity, abundance of minerals,” nasalized variant of Medieval Latin bonacia, alteration (with influence from Latin bonus “good,” possibly to avoid confusion with malus “bad”) of Latin malacia “calm sea,” from Greek malakía “softness” ( malak(ós) “soft” + -ia -ia )
Explanation
An unexpected increase in tourism to a small town could be a bonanza for the locals. Bonanza means "a sudden opportunity to make money." Bonanza is a noun that means "a sudden rush of wealth or good fortune," but in a more scientific sense it means "a rich source of a precious metal." So, if you happen to strike gold in your backyard, that would be a bonanza on both fronts. "Boom towns" that sprung up during the California Gold Rush were created by a bonanza. More casually, bonanza can mean something like "a big to-do," or an extravaganza.
Vocabulary lists containing bonanza
The Omnivore's Dilemma
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Butterfly Yellow
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Killers of the Flower Moon
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The end-of-summer networking bonanza was organised by 20 business groups representing everything from cars to clean energy, digital to detergents.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
Members of the Moneyist Facebook Group also suggest remembering the staff in your 24-hour bonanza at these two establishments.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026
An author winning the Nobel Prize in literature is about as big a bonanza of demand as you can imagine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
U.S. stocks were mixed as deadlock in the Middle East offset relatively benign consumer-inflation data and an artificial-intelligence earnings bonanza.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
These new GMO seeds could be a bonanza for the seed companies.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
SpaceX employees are racing to figure out what to do with their coming bonanzas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
The researchers suggest that these young eagles could be taking advantage of seasonal food bonanzas such as spawning salmon, nesting waterfowl, or carcasses of large mammals.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 11, 2025
Nice is the gravitational center around which the Knicks bonanzas orbit.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2023
It didn’t erase all that went sideways during the losses, or even prior victories that were goal-scoring bonanzas in which defensive play was abandoned.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 21, 2022
The irresistible law of gravity distributed these sulphates, these oxides, and these carbonates in vast bonanzas, that have been the wonder of the world.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
