pickaninny

Questions about pickaninny

What does pickaninny mean?

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

How many syllables are in pickaninny?

pickaninny has 4 syllables and divides as pic-ka-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 pickaninny?

Close synonyms include piccaninny, picaninny. 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 pickaninny a common word?

pickaninny 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.