Wiktionary

raccoon

See also: Raccoon

English edit

WOTD – 23 June 2010
 
English Wikipedia has an article on:
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A common raccoon (Procyon lotor).
 
A raccoon raiding a bird feeder at night.

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From arocoun (1608), from Powhatan ärähkun, from ärähkuněm (“he scratches with his hands”).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

raccoon (plural raccoons)

  1. An omnivorous, nocturnal mammal native to North America, typically with a mixture of gray, brown, and black fur, a mask-like marking around the eyes and a striped tail; Procyon lotor.
    • 1624, Iohn Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: […], London: […] I[ohn] D[awson] and I[ohn] H[aviland] for Michael Sparkes, →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 6); reprinted in The Generall Historie of Virginia, [...] (Bibliotheca Americana), Cleveland, Oh.: The World Publishing Company, 1966, →OCLC:
      Before a fire upon a seat like a bedsted, he sat covered with a great robe, made of Rarowcun skinnes, and all the tayles hanging by.
    • 1634, William Wood, “Of the Beasts that Live on the Land”, in New Englands Prospect. A True, Lively, and Experimentall Description of that Part of America, Commonly Called New England; […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Bellamie, […], →OCLC, 1st part, page 22:
      The Rackoone is a deepe furred beaſt, not much unlike a Badger, having a tayle like a Fox, as good meate as a Lambe; there is one of them in the Tovver.
    • 2010 April 3, Charlie Brooker, “Screen Burn”, in The Guardian:
      Thus we're presented with […] a man who has the head of his penis bitten off by a raccoon, then bleeds to death in a forest.
  2. Any mammal of the genus Procyon.
  3. Any mammal of the subfamily Procyoninae, a procyonine.
  4. Any mammal of the family Procyonidae, a procyonid.
  5. (loosely, proscribed) Any mammal superficially resembling a raccoon, such as a raccoon dog.

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Translations edit

See also: Raccoon
 
northern raccoon range

Anagrams edit

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