Green’s Dictionary of Slang

stupidity, esp. as enacted by black people.

1989

G. Tate ‘The GOP Throws a Mammy-Jammy’ Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 103: Percy Sledge was the only entertainer of the evening who embarrassed me with coonery.

1. (UK juv.) stupid.

1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 22: I thought I should a-died for shame one minit, and the next I felt so coonish I had half a mind to fly at the Speaker.
1884		Sun River Sun (MT) 4 Sept. 5/5: If you would have your sons and daughters notable, don’t scrimp them in the matter of names even if it does sound slightly coonish.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 coonish n. behaving stupidly.

2. (US) angry, aggressive.

1862

Democrat & Sentinal (Ebensburg, PA) 12 Feb. 1/3: I thought I should a died from shame one minit and the next I felt so coonish I had half a mind to fly at the Speaker.

(US) a flashy automobile, supposedly preferred by African-American owners .

1984		J. Ellroy Blood on the Moon [ebook] It was a highfinned, chopped and lowered 1947 Cadillac, what Crazy Tom would have called a ‘Coon-Mobile’.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘You ain’t drivin’ my Caddy out the Jersey Shore with that smelly guinea fish in it’ [...] ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in this coonmobile’.

see Coontown

see separate entry.

within a larger urban area, that part recognized as home to the black community.

1866		Dly Union & American (Nashville, TN) 10 Oct. 2/5: There is a little cross roads place in this county known by the name of ‘Coon Bottom’.
1875		Report of the Chief of Engineers U.S. Army 2 47: Just below foot-bridge on high road to Coon Bottom, (‘Concord’ on maps).
1899		Richmond Planet (VA) 25 Nov. 8/3: While her son [...] was playing in coon bottom he was accidentally shot in the ankle by Frank Williams (colored).
1901		C.R. Wooldridge Hands Up! 313: Another section of this ‘Satan’s Mile’ which began at Taylor street was called ‘Coon Hollow,’ on account of the large colored population.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 52: Coon Bottom; Coon Town n [C] Black community within an urban area.

(US) a white man who pursues/has sex with black women.

1887

Lantern (N.O.) 23 July 2: Bud is the biggest coon chaser in all America.

(US) a segregated area of an ostensibly open-to-all restaurant.

1957

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 7 Dec. 13: Frank’s highly popular restaurant up to 1940 had its own ‘Coon Corner’ for [...] upper strata Negroes.

(US) an illicitly distilled spirit, compounded of ‘grapefruit juice, cornmeal mash, beef bones and a few mo’ things’ (Zora Neale Hurston, Mules & Men, 1935).

1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 21: ‘What is coon dick?’ ‘Aw, Zora, jus’ somethin’ to make de drunk come. Made out uh grape fruit juice, corn meal mash, beef bones and a few mo’ things.’.
1948		Z.N. Hurston Seraph on the Suwanee (1995) 823: What you didn’t swap off for coon-dick [...] Case of canned tomatoes or corn for a gallon of moonshine.

see sense 5 above.

(US) illicitly distilled whisky.

1905		(ref. 1862) Little & Maxwell History of Lumsden’s Battery C.S.A. 10: Leaving Tuscaloosa, Aug. 16th, for one week they were on the road to Chattanooga and all sorts of a time was experienced. Some ‘coon juice’ ‘tangle-foot’ was occasionally in evidence and caused some exhilaration and subsequent depression and some insubordination temporary.
1965–70		in DARE.
2001		Few. the Loud (U. of Colorado) 2 🌐 Maybe at another party somebody asked you if you’d like to try some ‘Coon Juice’ and it tasted so good that you ended up getting plastered before you realized there was even alcohol in it.

(orig. US) a derog. term, as used by racists, for those who are seen as insufficiently hostile to blacks.

1967		J. Breslin World of Jimmy Breslin (1968) 89: New Yawk coon-lover.
1974		D. Goines Swamp Man 53: I say old Red is a coon lover.

(US) a very long time; often as in a coon’s age [the life-span of a SE racoon, although the phr. is inevitably seen as linked to sense 5 above].

1837		Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) 11 Nov. 2/4: I guess [...] that it will be a ‘coon’s age’ before they try themselves with such a writer agagin.
1843		W.T. Thompson Major Jones’s Courtship (1872) 129: Mary soon got over her skare, but the way she’s mad at cousin Pete won’t wear off in a coon’s age.
1845		W.T. Thompson Chronicles of Pineville 172: We won’t hear the end of this bis’ness for a coon’s age you see if we do.
1851		‘How Sally Hooter Got Snake-Bit’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 74: That’s the best red eye I’ve swallered in er coon’s age.
1856		N.O. Weekly Delta 23 Nov. p.1 in A.P. Hudson Humor of the Old Deep South (1936) n.p.: Boys, sez I, look here! We’ve been on this dug-out ’bout a coon’s age.
1867		G.W. Harris Sut Lovingood’s Yarns 189: That wer the fust spessamin ove a smokin mad gal I’ve seed in a hen’s age.
1868		H.L. Williams Three Black Smiths in Darkey Drama 4 27: He was gone a coon’s age.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 52: Wall, Pete, whar have you been? I hav’nt see you this coon’s age.
1884		J. Harrison ‘Negro English’ in Anglia VII 276: Ain’t seed you iner ‘coon’s age = haven’t seen you for a long time.
1898		J. Fox Jr ‘The Passing of Abraham Shivers’ Hell Fer Sartain and Other Stories n.p.: Hit ud take a coon’s age, I reckon, to tell ye.
1905		H. Green The Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 33: Well, I do declare, I ain’t seen yuh folks in a coon’s age!
1906		O.W. Hanley ‘Dialect Words From Southern Indiana’ in DN III:ii 116: coon’s age, n. Long time.
1909		W.M. Raine Brand Blotters (1912) 189: Dad burn yore ornery hide, I ain’t see you long enough for a good talk in a coon’s age.
1911		L. Pound ‘A Second Word-List From Nebraska’ in DN III:vii 542: coon’s age, n. A long time. ‘I’ve not seen you in a coon’s age’.
1913		J. London The Valley of the Moon (1914) 219: I ain’t had a smoke of decent tobacco or a cup of decent coffee in a coon’s age.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 2861: It’s a dog’s age since I met anyone new.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 106: Best fried chicken I’ve tasted for a coon’s age.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Breach of Promise’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 24: Now we do not see him once in a coon’s age.
1933		J. Conroy Disinherited 165: Took me a coon’s age t’ git on to it.
1940		(con. 1820s) W.E. Wilson The Wabash 225: I ain’t heared a real, honest-to-God, knock-down-an’-drag-out, reputation-blastin’ jaw-fest among good friends in a coon’s age.
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 375: Say, I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age!
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 55: She could have done her bit by answering a Goddam letter once in a dinosaur’s age.
1957		‘Weldon Hill’ Onionhead (1958) 70: ‘Best deal I’ve run across ina coon’s age, buddy’.
1964		A. Hine The Unsinkable Molly Brown 15: The Binks boys hadn’t wrassled with Molly in a coon’s age.
1968		D. O’Grady A Bottle of Sandwiches 199: Haven’t seen ’em in a coon’s age.
1970		D. Ponicsan The Last Detail 77: Hell, I haven’t been in a brawl in a coon’s age.
1977		R. Coover Public Burning (1979) 615: The 30th First lady of the Land and the prettiest in a coon’s age.
1988		(con. 1940s) C. Bram Hold Tight (1990) 135: We haven’t seen each other in a coon’s age.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 95: Because of coon’s disparaging use, most people today steer clear of the many phrases in which the word has appeared, e.g. coon’s age.
1992		(con. 1917) M. Childress A World Made of Fire 142: Come out and see me! Been twice a coon’s age since the last.
1993		J. Mowry Six Out Seven (1994) 66: Hell, boss, that there ole steamer ain’t fired in a coon’s age.
2002		D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 7: That’s the best ideas I’ve heard in a donkey’s age.
2011		S. Kelman Pigeon English 18: He couldn’t stop for donkey hours.
2011		D.R. Pollock Devil All the Time 204: ‘[T]hat boy probably ain’t had nothing that good to eat in a coon’s age’.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] That nigguh had heart?! An’ I be somewhere dead or doin’ dinosaur numbers.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 140: ‘Ain’t seen a woman so fine in a coon’s age’.

(US) an all-night party.

1994

C. Major Juba to Jive 113: Coonshine, n. (1870s–1900s) this term originated among white speakers, meaning a night party.

(US) a song performed in a minstrel show.

1899		H. Lawson ‘The Songs They Used to Sing’ in Roderick (1972) 380: They sang the ‘Blue Tail Fly’, and all the first and best coon songs.
1901		D. Cotsford Society Snapshots 223: Why not write me a ‘coon’ song?
1902		P.L. Dunbar Jest Of Fate (1903) 131: Mr. Meriweather will now favour us with the latest coon song.
1903		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear’ in Rolling Stones (1913) 36: He could do twenty-seven coon songs and banjo specialties.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 mar. 2/3: Fuuuy Powors is really good in her coon song and dance, and in the prutty set scene, ‘Coons in the Cornfield,’ along with that really artistic ‘coon’ Maud Faning, she does hooray work.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Apr. 4/7: He kept writing her cakewalks and coon songs / To capture her ficklesome heart.
1910		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley Says 52: If th’ naygurs down South [...] flew at their masters, ye’d hear no more coon songs.
1915		Murphy & Lipton [perf. Morny Cash] ‘Beautiful, Beautiful Bed’ 🎵 I’m not going to sing you a coon song / I’d rather commit suicide.
1920		Columbia Records catalog in Tosches (2001) n.p.: By ‘coon songs’ are meant up-to-date comic songs in negro dialect. The humor of many of these songs cannot be called refined and for that reason we have distinguished them from old-fashioned darky humor.

see separate entry.

a derog. term for the black section of a town or city.

1889		J.J. Wood Wilderness and the Rose 25: ‘Where’d you git that?’ ‘Up at Coontown; bitterest stuff you ever saw; some mout think thet th’ remidy was worse’n th’ disease’.
1894		C.W. Gardner Doctor and the Devil 52: Most of the vice [...] is to be found in the settlements in it known as ‘Coontown’ and ‘Frenchtown’.
1898		George R. Wilson ‘Ma Genuine African Blonde’ 🎵 They had a Ragtime ball and picnic down in Coontown.
1899		Irving Jones ‘I Want a Filipino Man’ 🎵 There’s a heap of trouble brewing up in Coon-town.
1904		Rising Sun (Kansas City, MO) 29 Jan. 1/3: ‘Coonville jamboree’ selection.
1905		Falls Tribune (Falls City, NE) 22 Dec. 7/6: ‘Hot Time in Coon Town’. The funniest of all Negro shows.
1916		Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, UT) 16 Sept. 4/6: Death of Billy Johnson of [...] ‘The trip to Coon Town’.
1978		T. O’Brien Going After Cacciato (1980) 138: Coonsville, MoTown, Sin City.

(US) a shrewd individual.

1835		A.B. Longstreet Georgia Scenes 216: To be sure I will, my old coon — take it — take it, and welcome [DA].
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 37: A knowin’ old coon, bred and born to London, might see the difference, but you couldn’t.
1853		G.J. Whyte-Melville Digby Grand (1890) 43: Colonel Dodge [...] boasts himself ‘a ’cute old ’coon from Mississippi’.
1862		Punch 1 Feb. n.p.: Such an all-fired smart old coon / As William Henry Seward.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 349: He was a tough old coon, this Johnny Hart!
1877		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (4th edn) 436: ‘He’s an old coon,’ is said of one who is very shrewd; often applied to a political manager.