English edit

Noun edit

piccanin (plural piccanins)

  1. (South Africa, Australia) Alternative form of pickaninny
    • 1964. Credo Vusa'mazulu Mutwa: Indaba, My Children. This edition 1999. Grove Press →ISBN Page 667.
      The piccanin stands at the gate. There are tears in his eyes and hunger in his belly. He is puzzled and scared by what he saw happening the previous night in the place he knows as home. His mother and father had quarreled and he had been awakened by the noise.
    • 1978, André Brink, Rumours of Rain, Vintage, published 2000, page 57:
      And then one boy came back into the water to help me, a Black piccanin, I believe his name was Mpilo [] .