The painful swelling that makes big toes bigger is called a bunion, a word that may derive from the same source as the word bun. In the fifteenth century, this shared source—the Old French bugne, meaning bump on the head—was adopted by the East Anglian dialect of English as bunny, meaning lump or swelling (no relation, as far as anyone knows, to the bunny that appears on Easter Sunday); in the early eighteenth century, this bunny became bunion and was used by toe-doctors to refer to a swelling of the bursa mucosa. The French bugne may also be the source of the English bun, first recorded in the fourteenth century, since buns are lumps of dough that swell in size as they bake. Although this origin is uncertain, it is made more probable by the fact that the French themselves, by the fifteenth century, had formed a diminutive from bugne—bugnet—and used it to refer to fritters and small, round loaves. The word bun was first used as a name for a hairstyle in the late nineteenth century. In Scotland, the word bun is not the name of a baked lump of dough but of a cake made from fruit and spice.
An unsweetened roll or a small sweetened cake, which is generally round or oval in shape and flattened in appearance.
Buns are traditionally made from a mixture that includes yeast. This ingredient gives them a texture similar to bread, while other additions such as sweeteners, shortening, raisins or currants, and spices contribute to their distinctive taste. Some popular examples of buns include Cinnamon, Bath, and Hot Cross buns, as well as Schnecken. The addition of these ingredients gives buns a unique flavor and texture that distinguishes them from other types of bread.