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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

pickaninny en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /ˈpɪkənɪni/ (UK)
  • (Canada) audio

Etymology

Probably from a Portuguese pidgin, from Portuguese pequenino (“boy, child”), noun use of pequenino (“tiny”), from pequeno (“small”). In South African uses probably partly after Afrikaans pikenien.

Meanings

  1. (archaic, not-comparable) Little, small.
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:pickaninny.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
piccanin alternative lexicographic
piccaninny alternative lexicographic
picinniny alternative lexicographic
pikinini alternative lexicographic
pickininny alternative lexicographic
picaninny alternative lexicographic
pickininnie alternative lexicographic
pickny alternative lexicographic
pickaninnie alternative lexicographic

pickaninny en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈpɪkənɪni/ (UK)
  • (Canada) audio

Etymology

Probably from a Portuguese pidgin, from Portuguese pequenino (“boy, child”), noun use of pequenino (“tiny”), from pequeno (“small”). In South African uses probably partly after Afrikaans pikenien.

Meanings

  1. (colloquial, ethnic, offensive, slur) A black child.
    • What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies 2002 January 10, Boris Johnson, “If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there”, in The Daily Telegraph:
    • Governor,— that will make a good settler,— that's my Pickaninny! 1817 January 4, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Observer, Sydney:
    • The pickaninny was an imagined, subhuman black juvenile who was typically depicted outdoors, merrily accepting (or even inviting) violence. The word (alternatively spelled “picaninny” or “piccaninny”) dates to the seventeenth century, […] 2011, Robin Bernstein, Racial Innocence, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 34:
    • A small white donkey glimmered into sight, and behind it a milk cart, rattling its cans, and behind that ran a small and ragged piccaninny, a child of perhaps seven years, whose teeth were rattling so loudly they sounded like falling pebbles even across the width of the garden. 1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 134:
    • Piccaninnies squatted around absorbing the lesson. 1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 60:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
pickaninnies Number=Plur lexicographic
pikinini alternative lexicographic
pickaninnie alternative lexicographic
pickininny alternative lexicographic
pickny alternative lexicographic
piccaninny alternative lexicographic
pickininnie alternative lexicographic
piccanin alternative lexicographic
picaninny alternative lexicographic
picinniny alternative lexicographic

Deriveds

pickaninny Christmas · pickney

Descendants

piknini · biginini · pikinini · pickney · pikinini · pickney · pikinini · biginini

Translations (1)

el αραπάκι (black child)