raccoon

WOTD – 23 June 2010    

English

Wikipedia

A common raccoon (Procyon lotor)

Raccoon raiding bird feeder at night

Alternative forms

• racoon [from 17th c.]
• rarowcun [17th c.]
• r'coon (colloquial contraction)

Etymology

From arocoun (1608), from Powhatan ärähkun, from ärähkuněm ‘he scratches with his hands’.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ɹəˈkuːn/
• (US) IPA: /ɹæˈkun/, /ɹəˈkun/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn

Noun

raccoon (plural raccoons)

1. A nocturnal omnivore originally living in North America, typically with a mixture of gray, brown, and black fur, a mask-like marking around the eyes and a striped tail; Procyon lotor.
   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 64:

     Before a fire upon a seat like a bedsted, he sat covered with a great robe, made of Rarowcun skinnes, and all the tayles hanging by.

   • 2010, Charlie Brooker, "Screen Burn", The Guardian, 3 Apr 2010:

     Thus we're presented with [...] a man who has the head of his penis bitten off by a raccoon, then bleeds to death in a forest.

2. Any mammal of the genus Procyon.
3. Any mammal of the subfamily Procyoninae, a procyonine.
4. Any mammal of the family Procyonidae, a procyonid.

Synonyms

• common raccoon, Procyon lotor
• North American raccoon, Procyon lotor
• northern raccoon, Procyon lotor
• (colloquial) coon, Procyon lotor

Derived terms

• coon dog
• coonhound
• Cozumel raccoon Procyon pygmaeus
• crab-eating raccoon Procyon cancrivorus
• in a raccoon's age (in a coon's age)
• pygmy raccoon Procyon pygmaeus
• raccoon butterfly Chaetodon fasciatus
• raccoon butterflyfish, Chaetodon lunula
• raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides
• raccoon eyes
• Red Sea raccoon butterflyfish Chaetodon fasciatus

Translations

nocturnal omnivore living in North America, Procyon lotor

• Armenian: ջրարջ (hy) (ǰrarǰ) 
• Azeri: yenot (az)
• Basque: mapatxe (eu)
• Belarusian: янот (be) (janót) m 
• Bulgarian: енот (bg) (enót) m 
• Catalan: ós rentador (ca) m
• Cherokee: ᎬᎵ (chr) (gvli)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 浣熊 (cmn) (huànxióng)

• Creek: wotko
• Czech: mýval (cs) m
• Danish: vaskebjørn (da)
• Dutch: wasbeer (nl) m
• Esperanto: lav-urso (eo)
• Estonian: pesukaru (et)
• Faroese: tváttarbjørn (fo) f
• Finnish: pesukarhu (fi)
• French: (more exactly) raton laveur commun (fr) m, (less exactly) raton laveur (fr) m
• German: Waschbär (de) m, (obsolete) Schupp (de) m
• Hindi: रैकून (hi) (raikūn)
• Hungarian: mosómedve (hu)
• Icelandic: þvottabjörn (is) m
• Ido: (♂♀) ratono (io), (♂) ratonulo (io), (♀) ratonino (io), (♂♀ offspring) ratonyuno (io), (♂ offspring) ratonyunulo (io), (♀ offspring) ratonyunino (io)
• Indonesian: rakun (id)

• Italian: procione (it) m , orsetto lavatore (it) m
• Japanese: アライグマ (ja) (araiguma), 洗熊 (ja) (あらいぐま, araiguma)
• Korean: 아메리카너구리 (ko) (Amerika neoguri)
• Lakota: wica
• Latvian: jenots
• Luxembourgish: Wäschbier (lb) m
• Macedonian: ракун (mk) (rakún) m
• Navajo: tábąąh mąʼii
• Norwegian: vaskebjørn (no) m
• Ojibwe: ᐁᐦᓯᐸᓐ (esiban) na
• Polish: szop (pl) m
• Portuguese: guaxinim (pt) m
• Romanian: raton (ro), ursuleț spălător (ro)
• Russian: енот (ru) (jenót) m 
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ракун (sh) m

  Roman: rakun (sh) m

• Slovak: mýval (sk) m
• Slovene: rakun (sl) m
• Spanish: mapache (es) m, oso lavador (es) m, zorra manglera (es) f, gato manglatero (es) m
• Swedish: tvättbjörn (sv) c
• Turkish: rakun (tr)
• Ukrainian: єнот (uk) (jenót) m 
• Vietnamese: gấu mèo Mỹ (vi), gấu trúc Mỹ (vi)
• Volapük: (♂♀) räkun (vo), (♂) hiräkun (vo), (♀) jiräkun (vo), (♂♀ offspring) räkunül (vo), (♂ offspring) hiräkunül (vo), (♀ offspring) jiräkunül (vo)
• Welsh: racŵn (cy) m

any mammal of the genus Procyon

• Esperanto: (member of genus) prociono (eo)
• Finnish: pesukarhu (fi)

• Swedish: tvättbjörn (sv) c

any mammal of the subfamily Procyoninae

• Esperanto: (member of subfamily) procioneno (eo)

• French: (member of subfamily) procyoniné (fr) m

any mammal of the family Procyonidae

• Esperanto: (member of family) procionedo (eo)

• French: (member of family) procyonidé (fr) m