I just googled this...
The word bunny bears no resemblance to rabbit, so, where does it come from? Curiously, bunny is closer to the original word and for centuries rabbit was applied only to the young of the species. Until the 18th century the most common word for these creatures was cony, hence Coney Island where settlers found an abundance of rabbits. The word cony was not pronounced as the Coney in Coney Island, however. It was pronounced "cunny". Unfortunately, cunny was also the common English word for a certain unmentionable part of the feminine anatomy. When faced with the task of naming this species in public, delicately-raised souls had two options. They could either use the word for the animal's young (rabbit) or they could deliberately mispronounce cony as (you guessed it) bunny.
I just googled this...
The word bunny bears no resemblance to rabbit, so, where does it come from? Curiously, bunny is closer to the original word and for centuries rabbit was applied only to the young of the species. Until the 18th century the most common word for these creatures was cony, hence Coney Island where settlers found an abundance of rabbits. The word cony was not pronounced as the Coney in Coney Island, however. It was pronounced "cunny". Unfortunately, cunny was also the common English word for a certain unmentionable part of the feminine anatomy. When faced with the task of naming this species in public, delicately-raised souls had two options. They could either use the word for the animal's young (rabbit) or they could deliberately mispronounce cony as (you guessed it) bunny.
I just googled this...
The word bunny bears no resemblance to rabbit, so, where does it come from? Curiously, bunny is closer to the original word and for centuries rabbit was applied only to the young of the species. Until the 18th century the most common word for these creatures was cony, hence Coney Island where settlers found an abundance of rabbits. The word cony was not pronounced as the Coney in Coney Island, however. It was pronounced "cunny". Unfortunately, cunny was also the common English word for a certain unmentionable part of the feminine anatomy. When faced with the task of naming this species in public, delicately-raised souls had two options. They could either use the word for the animal's young (rabbit) or they could deliberately mispronounce cony as (you guessed it) bunny.
The Latin for rabbit is cuniculus, which literally means a little c**t.
Oh mighty Google, it knoweth all.
That's really interesting.