pickaninny

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”). In South African uses probably partly after Afrikaans pikenien.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɪkənɪni/

Noun

pickaninny (plural pickaninnies)

1. (colloquial, now offensive) 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 […].

Adjective

pickaninny (not comparable)

1. (now rare) Little, small. [from 18th c.]
   • For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:pickaninny.

References

• Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed (1889) (confirms that the adjective meaning "little" is used in Australia)