sunny
Americanadjective
-
full of or exposed to sunlight
-
radiating good humour
-
of or resembling the sun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of sunny
Explanation
Sunny means shining with bright sunlight, like a beautiful sunny Saturday at the beach. It can also mean cheerful, like your sunny, upbeat best friend. When the sun is shining, it's a sunny day, and when you're smiling and friendly, you're sunny too. Sunny has been used in this figurative way since the 16th century, and in the 1830s, sunny side came to mean "optimistic outlook." However, if you order your eggs sunny side up, it just means you'll get two fried eggs with bright yellow, runny yolks.
Vocabulary lists containing sunny
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -y
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Spelling Practice 1, Unit 6
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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:
They say it’s always sunny in Los Angeles, but inside the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, you can count on it to pour eight shows a week.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
However, after starting sunny here, cloud will increase during the day.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
Behind the rain it is back to sunny spells and scattered showers, and still windy in the west on Wednesday.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
Ms. Fritz dismisses speculation that the two fell into each other’s arms on this sunny, romantic-sounding holiday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
The seventh of September is a glorious, sunny day.
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Warsh offered a sunnier interpretation of why Treasury yields have moved higher, citing increased expectations for economic growth and the artificial-intelligence investment boom, alongside geopolitical risks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
Representatives of the U.S. government also projected a sunnier outlook in public and in private.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
The strength and amount of direct sunshine available is always changing with sunnier longer days giving a greater warming potential than cloudy dull ones.
From BBC ● Mar. 19, 2026
But these are all emergency constraints; the long-term trendlines are much sunnier.
From Slate ● Mar. 12, 2026
This room was sunnier, with an entire line of windows to see outside.
From "March Forward, Girl" by Melba Pattillo Beals
In his review, Roger Ebert called her “one of the sunniest and most natural of actresses.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
The month of July was also the "sunniest month ever observed" in Britain, the Met Office said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026
Meanwhile, England saw its third, Wales its joint eighth and Scotland its ninth sunniest.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
Despite 2025 being the sunniest year on record, it was only an average year for butterflies overall, ranking 20th out of the past 50.
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026
As I look up at the sky, there seems to be a black cloud lingering over my neighborhood, even on the sunniest day.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
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.
