DCHP-1 Online

cooney ((1)) 1 kuni [< Esk. kuni(a) wife < Danish Kone] Arctic

• 1 n. a woman, especially a wife.

  • 1850  I like this species of madness, especially when the pretty Koonahs made me jump about with them.
  • 1860  (1865)  Tookoolito informed me to-day that the words pickaninny, for infant; cooney, for wife; pussy, for seal; Husky, for Innuit; smoketute, for pipe, and many other words, are not Esquimaux, though in use among her people.
  • 1910  [The presence of a few Scandinavian words, for example, kunia, "wife," in the jargon of the Point Barrow Eskimo and whites, is due to Danish rather than to Norse influence.]
  • 1938  They told me there was even a square dance, the numbers called by John L. Sullivan [an Eskimo]. When it came to "Ladies in the center," John L. called out "Bunch your coonies." "Coonies" I found out was whaler-Eskimo for ladies.
  • 1961  "It can't be," murmured the old lady, who had never known a Company trader without a beard and a bald head. "Whatever will the kunis think of them curly locks!"

• 2 n. a caribou doe.

  • 1882  He had shot two deer [caribou], a "cooney" and an "isaacer"--that is, a doe and a buck--and he had their warm, bloody skins on his back.