or pickaninny, pinkaninny, &c., subs. (colloquial).A baby; a child: specifically (modern) a child of negro parents. [Originally from PINK (an endearment)small: see PIGSNEY.]GROSE (1785).
1696. DURFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719), i. 283.
Dear PINCKANINNY, if half a Guinny, | |
To Love will win ye, | |
I lay it here down. |
1855. HALIBURTON (Sam Slick), Nature and Human Nature, 59. Let me see one of you dare to lay hands on this PICKANINNY.
1865. H. KINGSLEY, The Hillyars and the Burtons, xxviii. Five-and-forty black fellows, lubras, PICANINNIES, and all, at my heels.
1879. F. LOCKER-LAMPSON The Old Cradle.
You were an exceedingly small PICANINNY | |
Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago. |
1883. Harpers Magazine [Century], lxxvi. 809. A poor puny little PICKANINNY, black as the ace of spades.