bunnow, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bunnow n.

[ ‘Bunao is the second person plural of the imperative, used as a substantive, of the Hindee verb Bunauna, ‘to make,’ and, perhaps, ‘a made-up affair’ would be its nearest, though circumlocutory translation’ Anglo-India (1838)]

(Anglo-Ind.) a fake or counterfeit; esp. as terrier bunnow, a nondescript dog that has been cropped to make it appear a fashionable breed.

1838		Anglo-India, Social, Moral, and Political 347: Bunao. The best elucidation of this term is Peter Pindar’s celebrated tale of the Razors. It exactly signifies what is made, not to shave, but to sell. ‘This Joe Manton is a bit of a bunao,’ is a phrase often applied to the fowling-pieces sold at Monghyr [...] where accordingly the majority of inhabitants are blacksmiths. Similarly, we may say, ‘this hookah-snake, this palkee or palankeen, are bunaos;’ and, by an easy metaphor, ‘that story of his is a complete bunao’ .
1841		F.J. Bellew ‘Memoirs of a Griffin’ in Asiatic Jrnl & Mthly Register June 119: ‘Halloo,’ said Marpeet, with a look of surprise, ‘where on earth did you get this beast? Why, he’s a regular terrier bunnow.’‘A terrier bunnow,’ said I, ‘what’s that?’‘Why,’ rejoined the captain, ‘he’s a thorough Pariar docked and cropped to make him look like a terrier; it’s a common trick played upon griffs, and you’ve been taken in, that’s all’.
1848		J.H. Stocqueler Oriental Interpreter 44/1: BUNNAO, Hindostanee. A make-up; a fabrication; applied equally to a verbal falsehood and to the docking and cropping of a pariah dog, to make him pass for a terrier.
1849		W.H. Jeremie Furlough Reminiscences 73: The first in size and degree, judging from his lying on master’s bed with a bearer fanning him [...] is a thorough bred English dog, none of your mongrels or terrier ‘bunnows’.
1857		D. Forbes Dict. Hindustani & Eng. I 125/1: [I]n the Indian English the word is pronounced and written bunnow, and means a ‘cram’ or ‘tough yarn,’ a purely made-up story.
1886		Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson 99/2: Bunnow, s. and v. Hind. ban?o, used in the sense of ‘preparation, fabrication,’&c., but properly the imperative of ban?n?, ‘to make, prepare, fabricate.’ The Anglo-Indian word is applied to anything fictitious or factitious, ‘a cram, a shave, a sham;’ or, as a verb, to the manufacture of the like.
1888		Kipling ‘In the House of Suddhoo’ in Plain Tales from Hills (1889) 149: Azizun was nearly in hysterics in the corner; while Janoo sat down composedly on one of the beds to discuss the probabilities of the whole thing being a bunao, or ‘make-up’.