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:
No news regarding the coming fall season has made me happier than the return of this sunny, aspirational Indigenous comedy, set in a small town among the Inuit people in Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost territory.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
He noted butterflies "do like hot and sunny weather", with the summer providing "great flying conditions for lots of species".
From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2026
As this initial line of downpours clears northwards the skies will brighten and sunny spells will develop, but further scattered showers that could again be very heavy and thundery are possible.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
She’s talking on a sunny morning on the leafy rooftop of a five-star hotel in Paris, with views of the Centre Pompidou and bells clanging from a 16th-century church nearby.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
“He didn’t want to leave sunny California for gloomy Scotland,” said Sydney.
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
During the sunnier spells the late August sunshine still has enough strength to make it feels reasonably warm too.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
It will then turn drier and sunnier for all parts over the weekend with some light winds.
From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026
Hiring trends have been looking sunnier this spring after a weak patch for the labor market in the fall and winter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
But these are all emergency constraints; the long-term trendlines are much sunnier.
From Slate ● Mar. 12, 2026
I thought it'd get sunnier once we crossed the bridge, but the weather’s overcast, a dull gray.
From "The House That Lou Built" by Mae Respicio
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
And none of us, even on the sunniest days, went without his furled umbrella.
From "Boy: Tales of a Childhood" by Roald Dahl
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.
