Dubious Etymologies: "Dead Rabbits"...

[Jonathan Lighter]

A check of the archives shows that Grant posted the following in connection with the _Gangs of New York_ movie in 2003:

  This article by Dan Cassidy purports to have determined the origin of
the gang name "Dead Rabbits."

http://www.observer.com/pages/wiseguys.asp

In Matsell’s dictionary, the word rabbit is "a rowdy," and a dead
rabbit is "a very athletic, rowdy fellow." Rabbit suckers are defined as "young spendthrifts." A slew of other slang terms in Matsell’s dictionary jump out at you from the soundtrack of Mr. Scorsese’s film: ballum rancum for a wild party, crusher for a cop, mort for a woman and lay for one’s criminal leaning or occupation. [...]

In an Irish-English dictionary published in Dublin in 1992, the Irish word ráibéad is defined as a "big, hulking person." It is that word, ráibéad along with the slang intensifier dead, meaning "very that provides the simple solution to the 150-year-old mystery of the moniker "Dead Rabbit."

  Speechless would I be had I not suspected as much.

  JL


James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: James Harbeck
Subject: Re: Dubious Etymologies: "Dead Rabbits"...
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FWIW, "conín" is the only Irish word I've ever
known for "rabbit," and the dictionaries I have
(not exhaustive) don't give another -- or another
meaning for "coinín". So, Wilson, what do your
more exhaustive, and perhaps older, references
say for the respective words? You've got me
curious now.

As to the plausibility of the supposed etymology,
it sure sounds like bullshit to me. I'm hard
pressed to think of, or find, something that
might match, though I admit I am rather less than
fluent in Irish. It really doesn't quite match
the usual Irish phonotactics without some
twisting. Anything it might match would probably
have the word division after the second syllable,
or some combination of three words perhaps. But I
really can't come close to it.

James Harbeck.

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