donkey

Etymology

The origin is uncertain. Originally a slang term from the late eighteenth century. Perhaps from Middle English *donekie (“a miniature dun horse”), a double diminutive of Middle English don, dun, dunne (a name for a dun horse), equivalent to modern English dun (“brownish grey colour”) + -ock (diminutive suffix) + -ie (diminutive suffix). Compare Middle English donning (“a dun horse”), English dunnock. Became more common than the original term ass due to the latter's homophony and partial merger with arse (cf. rabbit).

noun

1. A domestic animal, Equus asinus asinus, similar to a horse.
   Lost last Saturday between twenty and thirty shillings they that have found it please to leave it heare there is five shillings reward by Wm. Roberts that goeth with a Donkey with many thanks 1776-08-24, “[untitled]”, in Ipswich Journal, Ipswich, Suffolk, page 1
   DONKEY, donkey dick, a he, or jack ass, called donkey, perhaps from the Spanish, or don like gravity of that animal, entitled also the king of Spain's trumpeter 1785, Anonymous [Francis Grose], A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, London: S. Hooper
   I vow we must be near the place from where The two converging slides, the avalanches, On Marshall, look like donkey's ears. We may as well see that and save the day.” “Don't donkey's ears suggest we shake our own? 'For God's sake, aren't you fond of viewing nature?[…] 2013-11-17, Robert Frost, Delphi Collected Works of Robert Frost (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series), Delphi Classics, →OCLC
2. A stubborn person.
3. A fool.
4. (nautical) A small auxiliary engine.
5. (naval slang, dated) A box or chest, especially a toolbox.
6. (poker slang) A bad poker player.
7. British sea term for a sailor's storage chest.
   The chest may be found among those who stick to the sailing vessels, but for the steamer, the donkey died its natural death when the Suez Canal—responsible for many changes at sea—became an accomplished fact. 1903, W. H. Hood, The Blight of Insubordination, page 80