pickaninny
English
Alternative forms
- piccaninny, picaninny, picinniny, pikinini
- piccanin (South Africa, Australia)
- pickny (chiefly Caribbean)
Etymology
Probably from a Portuguese pidgin, from Portuguese pequenino (“boy, child”), noun use of pequenino (“tiny”), from pequeno (“small”). In South African uses probably partly after Afrikaans pikenien.
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "UK" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈpɪkənɪni/
Noun
pickaninny (plural pickaninnies)
- (colloquial, now offensive, ethnic slur) A black child. [from 17th c.]
- 1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther 1974, p. 134:
- A small white donkey glimmered into sight, and behind it a milk cart, rattling its cans, and behind that ran a small and ragged piccaninny, a child of perhaps seven years, whose teeth were rattling so loudly they sounded like falling pebbles even across the width of the garden.
- 1978, André Brink, Rumours of Rain, Vintage 2000, p. 57:
- And then one boy came back into the water to help me, a Black piccanin, I believe his name was Mpilo […] .
- 2011, Robin Bernstein, Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, NYU Press (→ISBN), page 34:
- The pickaninny was an imagined, subhuman black juvenile who was typically depicted outdoors, merrily accepting (or even inviting) violence. The word (alternatively spelled “picaninny” or “piccaninny”) dates to the seventeenth century, […]
- 1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther 1974, p. 134:
Derived terms
Descendants
- Bislama: pikinini
- Australian Kriol: biginini
- Pijin: pikinini
- Torres Strait Creole: biginini, piknini
- Tok Pisin: pikinini
Translations
black child — see also black child
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Adjective
pickaninny (not comparable)
- (now rare) Little, small. [from 18th c.]
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:pickaninny.
References
- Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed (1889) (confirms that the adjective meaning "little" is used in Australia)
Categories:
- English terms derived from Portuguese
- English terms derived from Afrikaans
- English 4-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English colloquialisms
- English offensive terms
- English ethnic slurs
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- English terms with rare senses