raccoon

• racoon [from 17th c.]
• rarowcun [17th c.]
• r'coon (colloquial contraction)
• coon (colloquial contraction)

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɹəˈkuːn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɹæˈkun/, /ɹəˈkun/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -uːn

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.

• (Procyon lotor): coon (colloquial), common raccoon, North American raccoon, northern raccoon, trash panda

• carcoon