zip coon
zip coon noun: a black man.
Noun (1)
zip coon (plural zip coons)
- A black man.
- Arter a while we got done—but it looked like I had bad luck for in sittin' down agin I lik'd to have sot on Barbry's tom cat, which if I had, I shoulder bin like Kurnel Zip Coon's wife who jump'd into a holler log to mash two young panters to deth, and they scratched her so bad she couldn t set...1858, Big Bear's Adventures and Travels, page 98
- "De gal w'at git ole Brer Jack 'ull git a natchul pacer, sho'. He move mo' one-sideder dan ole Zip Coon, w'ich he rack up de branch all night long wid he nose p'int lak he gwine 'cross."1883, The Century, volume 26, page 613
- A black person who accepts an inferior social status to white people.
- There were many names for the coon stock character. He has been referred to as the urban zip coon, dancing dandy, and, most notably, Sambo, the happy slave.2006, Ronald L. Jackson II, Scripting the Black Masculine Body: Identity, Discourse, and Racial Politics in Popular Media, page 26
- Dixon's "Zip Coon" celebrated such a dandy in 1834, and the engraving on the cover of the sheet music portrayed a zip coon in just such a jacket.2009, Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather, page 2
Proper noun capitalized: Zip Coon
Zip Coon
- A minstrel show character stereotypically depicted as an unintelligent black man incapable of assimilating into white American society.
Noun (2) capitalized: Zip Coon
Zip Coon (plural Zip Coons)
- Alternative letter-case form of zip coon.
Forms of zip coon
| plural | zip coons |
|---|---|
| alternative form | zip-coon |
| alternative form | Zip Coon |
| plural | Zip Coons |
Origin of zip coon
From a minstrel song titled Ole Zip Coon (1834) about a minstrel show character named Zip Coon. The song stereotypically portrays Zip Coon as unintelligent and incapable of assimilating into white American society.
From a minstrel song titled Ole Zip Coon (1834) where the character made its first appearance.
Questions about zip coon
- What does zip coon mean?
- Zip coon means a black man.
- What part of speech is zip coon?
- Zip coon can be a noun or a proper noun.
- What is the plural of zip coon?
- The plural of zip coon is zip coons.
Words near zip coon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: zip coon (page history and authors); Zip Coon (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.
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Cite this entry: “zip coon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zip_coon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.