| 释义 |
coon, n. Chiefly U.S.|kuːn|
[A familiar abbreviation of racoon.]
1. The racoon (Procyon lotor), a carnivorous animal of North America.
1742J. Hempstead Diary (1901) 388 Josh..killed another Coon to Day. 1850Lyell 2nd Vis. U.S. II. 279 Cash paid for coon, mink, wild-cat..and deer⁓skins. 1872C. King Mountain. Sierra Nev. v. 98, I had never killed a coon.
2. Applied to persons:
a. A nickname for a member of the old Whig party of the United States, which at one time had the racoon as an emblem.
(The nickname came up in 1839.)
1848Lowell Biglow P. ser. i. ix, A gethrin' public sentiment, 'mongst Demmercrats and Coons. a1860Boston Post in Bartlett Dict. Amer. s.v., Democrats..rout the coons, beat them, overwhelm them.
b. A sly, knowing fellow; a ‘fellow’.
1832Polit. Examiner (Shelbyville, Ky.) 8 Dec. 4/1, I was always reckoned a pretty slick koon for a trade. 1839Marryat Dairy Amer. Ser. i. II. 232 In the Western States, where the racoon is plentiful, they use the abbreviation 'coon when speaking of people. 1843Simms Guy Rivers 155 To be robbed of our findings by a parcel of blasted 'coons. 1860Punch XXXIX. 227 (Farmer) Then baby kicked up such a row As terrified that reverend coon. 1870M. Bridgman R. Lynne II. xiv. 296 Dicky Blake's a 'cute little coon. 1881J. Hawthorne Fort. Fool i. xxxiii, Jack they called him—a sort of half-wild little coon, that nobody knowd much about.
c. A Negro. slang. (Derog.)
1862Songs for the Times 3 Play up, Pomp, you yaller coon. 1892Congress. Rec. 4 Feb. 856/1 Instead of seating one colored Representative, they seated two,—two coons in place of the elected Representatives of the people. 1903Westm. Gaz. 18 May 3/2 The former represented a lively..jovial coon—possibly ‘coon’ is not the right word, which, however, is accepted here as modern slang for a nigger. 1948Chicago Defender 23 Oct. 7/2 A lot of us are referred to as ‘nigger’, ‘coon’, ‘darky’, etc., right to our faces. 1969Oz Apr. 46/3 You might..deplore the way that the publicity was angled—poor old coon, he'll thank us in the end.
d. S. Afr. A Coloured reveller at Cape Town; esp. a member of various groups which parade in carnival fashion through the streets.
1924Cape Argus 3 Jan. 8 The quiet streets of Cape Town were enlivened by the marching of troupes of coloured youths, gay in coon costumes. Ibid., Obviously this is the sort of thing the crowd loves, for a storm of applause goes up as the coons approach. 1937S. Afr. Dancing Times Feb. 8 Capetown's Annual Coon Contests. Ibid., An effective group which participated in the Capetown Coloured Coons Carnival, held at the Peninsular on New Year's Day. 1947L. G. Green Tavern of Seas i. 14 The coons of Cape Town, the carnival troupes that appear unfailingly with each New Year.
3. Phrases (chiefly U.S. slang). a gone coon: a person or thing that is ‘done for’ or in a hopeless case; hence gone-cooniness, -coonishness. a coon's age: emphatic for ‘a long time’. to hunt the same old coon: to keep doing the same thing. to go the whole coon: ‘to go the whole hog’; to ‘go in for’ a thing thoroughly.
1839Marryat Diary Amer. 1st Ser. II. 232 ‘I'm a gone 'coon’ implies ‘I am distressed—or ruined—or lost’. 1840C. F. Hoffman Greyslaer III. vi. iii. 221, I was afeared you were a gone coon, and was on the point of shoving off without you. 1844W. T. Thompson Major Jones' Courtship (ed. 2) 145 The way she's mad at cousin Pete won't wear off in a coon's age. 1845Mr. Giddings in Congress (Farmer), Besides the acquisition of Canada, which is put down on all sides as a gone coon. 1857Dickens Lying Awake in Repr. Pieces 192 (ibid.) Or, like that sagacious animal in the United States who recognized the colonel who was such a dead shot, I am a gone coon. a1860Southern Sketches (Bartlett), This child haint had much money in a coon's age. 1879Lowell Poet. Wks. (1879) 384 Meanwhile I inly curse the bore Of hunting still the same old coon. 1883H. W. V. Stuart Egypt 304 Before the performance was over he was a gone coon. 1884H. R. Haweis My Musical Memories (N.Y. 1884) i. 7 For downright fanaticism and ‘gone-cooniness’, if I may invent the word, commend me to your violin-maniac. 1890W. A. Wallace Only a Sister 53 When the former forgot the ‘gone coonishness’ of his earlier days.
4. a. attrib. and Comb., as coon-hunt, coon-hunting n. & a., coon story; coon-dog, a dog good at hunting the racoon; so coon hound; coon-heel, coon-oyster, varieties of North American oysters; coon-skin orig. U.S., the skin of the racoon, used as a fur (usually attrib.).
1833J. Hall Harp's Head 230 An old 'coon dog, has a face covered with scars. 1855Mayne Reid Hunters' Feast xiii. 97 Uncle Abe's dog—a stout terrier—was esteemed the ‘smartest 'coon-dog’ in a circle of twenty miles. 1967Boston Sunday Herald Mag. 26 Mar. 23/1 He got the idea of cashing in on the coons in our neighborhood by making a really fine coon dog out of Old George.
1920Outing (U.S.) Apr. 59/3 For Sale—a few as good Coon Hounds and mixed hunters as live. 1970Field & Stream July 110 (Advt.), Big game & coonhound pups.
1835Audubon Ornith. Biogr. III. 235, I will take you to a ‘Coon Hunt’. 1888‘C. E. Craddock’ Keedon Bluffs vi. 98 All the boys of Tanglefoot Cove and the mountain slopes had gathered for a coon-hunt. 1968Globe & Mail (Toronto) 17 Feb. 44 An actual coon hunt or two if there is any game in the area. 1970Daily Hampshire Gaz. (Northampton, Mass.) 6 Oct. 4/4 The first coon hunt of the season by the Rod and Gun Club drew a good crowd on Friday night.
1862T. Hughes in J. M. Ludlow Hist. U.S. 329 The usual coon-hunting, whisky-drinking pioneers of the West. 1890Opelousas (La.) Democrat 8 Feb. 3/4 Coon-hunting still gives great enjoyment to hunters in the mountainous districts of Massachusetts.
1870Amer. Naturalist III. 460 The small oysters..are not generally eaten except by the racoons, hence the common name for them of coon oysters.
1818A. Royall Lett. from Alabama (1830) 103 He..axed Merchant if he didn't want to trade for some coonskins. 1836W. G. Simms Mellichampe i, He gathered up his rifle, drew the 'coon-skin cap over his eyes. 1851Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xx. 144 There is a jauntiness in the set of that coon-skin cap. 1908Kipling Lett. of Travel (1920) 132 They had already been wearing wolf and coon skin coats. 1948Manch. Guardian Weekly 1 Jan. 9 A man in a coonskin cap appeared. 1963R. Snedigar Our Small Native Animals (ed. 2) 34 Such wearers of coonskin caps as Daniel Boone, Crockett, Audubon.
1870Emerson Soc. & Solit., Clubs Wks. (Bohn) III. 100 He liked, in a barroom, to tell a few coon stories.
b. attrib. or adj. in sense 2 c = of, pertaining to, or supposedly characteristic of a Negro or Negroes; spec. coon-shout (see quot. 1946); so coon-shouter, coon-shouting; coon song orig. U.S., a Negro song; a popular song resembling the songs of the Negroes.
Like sense 2 c above these depreciatory uses are tending to fall into disuse, or into restricted use, because of their offensiveness.
1837R. M. Bird Nick of Woods I. 223 You half-niggurs! you 'coon whelps! you snakes! 1877in H. Asbury Underworld of Chicago (1941) 80 Prospect of a Prize Fight Between Two Noted Coon Sluggers. 1887Lantern (New Orleans) 8 Jan. 6/2 Tom McIntosh caused quite a ripple..by his coon songs and dancing. 1897G. B. Shaw Theatres in Nineties (1932) III. 197 Her digressive way of enlivening the tedium of the comedy by an occasional coon song struck me as happy. 1905E. M. Forster Where Angels fear to Tread vii. 216 A coon song lay open on the piano. 1906H. Green Actors' Boarding House 26 ‘It goes big,’ remarked the Coon Shouter, enviously. 1917E. Wallace Kate, plus Ten (1919) v. 93 The noisy coon band kept up its rhythmetic pandemonium in one corner of the room. 1926Whiteman & McBride Jazz xi. 228 The exchange of experience between the classicist and ‘coon-shouter’. 1946Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 372/2 Coonshout, corny imitation of oldtime Negro style of singing. Ibid. ix. 146 Blackface routines and corny coonshouting and mammy numbers. 1958C. Wilford in P. Gammond Decca Bk. Jazz ii. 31 The immediate forerunners of ragtime as popular music were the coon song, made popular by the Christy Minstrels and many similar travelling black-face shows. 1959‘F. Newton’ Jazz Scene ix. 156 The impression of ‘coon English’, which coloured Americans dislike.
Hence coon v. intr., to creep (along a branch, etc.), clinging close like a racoon; also trans. coonery, the practice of the Whig ‘coons’ of U.S. (see 2 a above). coony a., ? bald like a racoon.
1834A. Pike Sk. 77 (Th.), Irwin was obliged to straddle the log, and, as they quaintly call it in the west, ‘coon it across’. 1835W. G. Simms Partisan 320 That curious sort of locomotion which, in the South and West, is happily styled ‘cooning the log’. a1860Boston Post in Bartlett Dict. Amer. s.v., Democrats..we must achieve a victory..coonery must fall with all its corruptions and abominations. 1886Century Mag. XXXIII. 16 note, In trying to ‘coon’ across Knob Creek on a log, Lincoln fell in. 1887Sat. Rev. 16 July 71 Hat-wearing man becomes Alopeciac, or ‘coony’. 1926J. Lord Frontier Dust 190, I would show her how a Yankee could coon a pole. |