picaninny

Questions about picaninny

What does picaninny mean?

picaninny means "(ethnic slur) offensive term for a Black child".

How many syllables are in picaninny?

picaninny has 4 syllables and divides as pi-ca-nin-ny under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for picaninny?

Close synonyms include pickaninny, piccaninny. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is picaninny a common word?

picaninny is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.