"coony" adj. = sly, cunning, 1910

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has _coony_, "sly," from 1899.

JL


On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:21 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "coony" adj. = sly, cunning, 1910
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Alison, apology accepted.  But as to bald like a raccoon, I have that
> on the best authority -- the OED's definition of "coony a.", under
> "coon, n."  ... Oops, perhaps they're wrong -- they've spelt it "racoon"!
>  :-)
>
> Joel
>
> At 2/3/2010 07:02 PM, Alison Murie wrote:
> >>~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >>' "bald" like a raccoon??'  Coons ain't bald.  Far from it.  'Possums
> >>look bald, but aren't.   Perhaps the meaning of "coony" is really
> >>cunning, which would be more appropriate altogether.
> >>AM
> >~~~~~~~~~~
> >Ooops.  Somehow I missed para 2 in Joel's post.  I'm sorting through a
> >mountain of backlogged mail.  I was away from my desk for ten days
> >getting a bad hip replaced & being whipped into a semblance of normal
> >functioning by a crew of therapists.  Medicare is wonderful.  (Only it
> >didn't get me to read my mail more carefully.)
> >AM
>
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