Jennie

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A female donkey, also called a she-ass ; a feminine first name, a short form of Jane or Jennifer
2. An adult female donkey or ass ; a girl's given name, often used as a diminutive of Jane or Jennifer
3. The female of the donkey species ; a first name given to girls, commonly a pet form of Jane or Jennifer

Etymology: Jenny began as a pet form of the personal name Jane, itself a medieval English version of Joan, which came from Latin "Iohanna." By the 1500s, English speakers were using Jenny as a generic name for a female animal, much as "Jack" was used for a male. The female donkey, the "jenny ass," is the oldest and best-known example, and the same pattern gave us the jenny wren and the jenny (female) of other birds. "Jennie" is simply an alternate spelling of the same word. The name reached machinery in 1764, when the English weaver James Hargreaves patented a multi-spindle spinning machine. It was called the spinning jenny, and the usual explanation is that Hargreaves named it after his daughter Jenny, though that account is traditional and not firmly documented. The name stuck, and the machine's jenny, like the animals, was a female counterpart to the male machines it was modeled on.

Synonyms: jenny