Bunny

Pet name for a rabbit since the early 1600s. Bunny is the diminutive of ‘bun’, an earlier dialectical word of unknown origin, now archaic, that meant ‘rabbit’. Since the mid-20th century, ‘bunny’ is also slang for an inexperienced or poor sports person. The Melbourne Herald Sun, for example, once described Daryll Cullinan as “Shane Warne’s bunny” because Shane Warne used to get him out so often, actually 12 times in international cricket matches between Australia and South Africa. See also Not a happy bunny.