"coony" adj. = sly, cunning, 1910

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has _coony_, "sly," from 1899.

JL

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      "coony" adj. = sly, cunning, 1910
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>
> The OED has "coony" (adj) only as "bald like a raccoon", with its
> only quotation
> 1887 Sat. Rev. 16 July 71 Hat-wearing man becomes Alopeciac, or 'coony'.
>
> The following seems to be an instance of "coony" (adj) = sly,
> cunning, from 1910.  Perhaps a variant of "canny", for which the OED
> says "Also in north Eng. dial. conny."?
>
> "In order to avoid accidents coony old Antonio had had false bottoms
> put in his two valises as well as his trunk, and in the pocket of one
> of them he had stowed away the baggage-check and a sight draft for
> twenty-four hundred pounds."
>
>  From Arthur Train, "The Spanish Prisoner," "Originally published in
> the March, 1910, issue of THE COSMOPOLITAN
> MAGAZINE."  Source:
>
> http://www.hidden-knowledge.com/funstuff/spanishprisoner/spanishprisoner1.html
> ,
> page 2.
>
> Joel
>
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