Noun: cony
| Singular | cony |
| Plural | conies |
Sample Sentences
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I were skynnes of conny, / That causeth I loke so donny. (I wear skins of cony, / That cause me to look so dunny.) [c. 1517 (date written; published c. 1545), John Skelton, “Here after Foloweth the Booke Called Elynour Rummynge. The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng per Skelton Laureat.”, in Alexander Dyce, editor, The Poetical Works of John Skelton: […], volume I, London: Thomas Rodd, […], published 1843, →OCLC, page 108, lines 399–400:]
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ORLANDO. Are you native of this place? / ROSALIND. As the cony that you see / dwell where she is kindled. [c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], lines 344-346:]
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It is a most simple animal; whence are derived our usual phrases of cony and cony catcher. [1599, Diet's Dry Dinner:]
Nouns inflected like cony
clitoridectomy,
royal jelly,
whoopsy,
surrogacy,
urinary,
rastrography,
renoscopy,
sourtop blueberry,
forcible entry,
superficiary,
lipidosity,
potability,
phonography,
hyperproperty,
greenery,
conjugality,
ring singularity,
Brittany,
ignobility,
obscurity, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English cony, back formation from conies (plural), from Anglo-Norman conis, the plural of connil (“rabbit”), from Latin cunīculus, of unknown origin. Cognate to Catalan conill, Dutch konijn, German Kaninchen, Spanish conejo, and Portuguese coelho. The original pronunciation was /ˈkʌni/ (for the spelling, compare honey and money), but the similarity to cunt (and particularly homophony with cunny) led through taboo avoidance both to the word's displacement in the main by rabbit and bunny and to the spelling-pronunciation /ˈkəʊni/ becoming standard. See: Middle English Nouns '
coni', Latin Nouns '
cunīculus', Catalan Nouns '
conill', Dutch Nouns '
konijn', German Nouns '
Kaninchen', Spanish Nouns '
conejo', Portuguese Nouns '
coelho'.
Verbs referencing "cony"
Dutch Nouns
konijn, German Nouns
Kaninchen, German Nouns
Kanin.