[Of various origin: senses 1, 2, f. BUNT v.1 + -ING2.]
1. Of a sail: Bellying, swelling.
a. 1702. R. Hooke, in Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 141. To prefer bellying or bunting sails to such as were hauled taught.
2. Swelling, plump; filled out, rounded, short and thick. (But bunting lamb may be from BUNT v.2)
1584. Peele, Arraignm. Paris, I. i. I have brought a twagger for the nones, A bunting lamb.
1613. Markham, Eng. Husbandman, I. I. xvii. (1635), 108. Barley for your seede … elect that which is whitest, fullest, and roundest, being as the Plough-man calles it, a full bunting Corne.
1808–25. Jamieson, Dict., Buntin, short and thick; as a buntin brat, a plump child, Roxb.
3. ? Resembling a rabbit’s bunt: short and cocked.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 259/2. The stork … hath but a short bunting Tail.
4. ? Untidy, tawdry.
1759. Compl. Lett.-Writer (ed. 6), 224. A large Pattern embroider’d Gown … which … was unfashionable and bunting.
1839. C. Clark, J. Noakes & Mary Styles, 13.
| Besure, when yow saa Mary drest, | |
| Nought she had on look’d buntin’. |
