Word.ws English Dictionary

pickaninny

UK/ˈpɪkənɪni/

pickaninny noun: a black child.

Noun

pickaninny (plural pickaninnies)

  1. (colloquial, ethnic, offensive, slur) A black child.
    • Governor,— that will make a good settler,— that's my Pickaninny!1817 January 4, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Observer, Sydney
    • Piccaninnies squatted around absorbing the lesson.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 60

Adjective

pickaninny (not comparable)

  1. (archaic) Little, small.
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:pickaninny.

pickaninny meaning in Urdu

pickaninny in Urdu

کلوٹا, سیاہ فام بچہ

Forms of pickaninny

pluralpickaninnies
alternative formpiccaninny
alternative formpicaninny
alternative formpicinniny
alternative formpikinini
alternative formpickaninnie
alternative formpickininnie
alternative formpickininny
alternative formpiccanin
alternative formpickny

Origin of pickaninny

Probably from a Portuguese pidgin, from Portuguese pequenino (“boy, child”), noun use of pequenino (“tiny”), from pequeno (“small”). In South African uses probably partly after Afrikaans pikenien.

Words formed from pickaninny

Questions about pickaninny

What does pickaninny mean?
Pickaninny means a black child.
What is pickaninny in Urdu?
Pickaninny in Urdu is کلوٹا, سیاہ فام بچہ. See Pickaninny meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is pickaninny?
Pickaninny can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce pickaninny?
Pickaninny is pronounced /ˈpɪkənɪni/ (UK).
What is the plural of pickaninny?
The plural of pickaninny is pickaninnies.

Words near pickaninny in the dictionary

  1. pickadils
  2. pickage
  3. pickages
  4. pickaninnie
  5. pickaninnies
  6. pickaninny
  7. pickaninny Christmas
  8. pickapack
  9. Pickar
  10. Pickard
  11. Pickards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pickaninny (page history and authors); pickaninny (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-RajanD100-pickaninny.wav.

Cite this entry: “pickaninny.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pickaninny. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.