saint boniface

noun

1. a city in SE Manitoba, in S central Canada: suburb of Winnipeg.

noun

1. SaintWynfrith, a.d. 680?–755?, English monk who became a missionary in Germany.
2. a jovial innkeeper in George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem.
3. (lowercase) any landlord or innkeeper.
4. a male given name: from a Latin word meaning “doer of good.”

noun

1. Saint,died a.d. 422, pope 418–422.

noun

1. Saint, pope a.d. 608–615.

noun

1. Saint . original name Wynfrith . ?680–?755 ad, Anglo-Saxon missionary: archbishop of Mainz (746–755). Feast day: June 5

“innkeeper,” from Will Boniface, character in George Farquhar’s comedy “The Beaux’ Stratagem” (1707). Contrary to the common opinion, this name derives not from Latin bonifacius ‘well-doer,’ but from bonifatius, from bonum ‘good’ and fatum ‘fate.’ The change to Bonifacius was due to pronunciation and from this was deduced a false etymology. Bonifatius is frequent on Latin inscriptions. Bonifacius is found only twice and these late (Thesaurus) [“Dictionary of English Surnames”]