The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pickaninny \Pick"a*nin`ny\ (p[i^]k"[.a]*n[i^]n`n[y^]), n.; pl. Pickaninnies (p[i^]k"[.a]*n[i^]n`n[i^]z). [Cf. Sp. peque[~n]o little, young.] A small child; especially, a negro or mulatto infant. Now (2001) used primarily in the latter sense, and in that sense often considered derogatory. [U.S. & West Indies]
Wiktionary
n. (context slang offensive derogatory English) a black child
WordNet
n. (offensive) a Black child [syn: piccaninny, picaninny]
Wikipedia
Pickaninny (also picaninny, piccaninny or pickinniny) is a term in English which refers to a racist and derogatory caricature of dark-skinned children of African descent. It is a pidgin word form, which may be derived from the Portuguese pequenino (a diminutive version of the word pequeno, "little"). In modern sensibility, the term implies a caricature which can be used in a derogatory and racist sense. According to the scholar Robin Bernstein, who describes the meaning in the context of the United States, the pickaninny is characterized by three qualities: "the figure is always juvenile, always of color, and always resistant if not immune to pain". These three qualifiers demonstrate the dehumanizing nature of the pickaninny caricature and are reflective of the predominantly colonial society in which its use was popularised, where Portuguese values predominated.
Usage examples of "pickaninny".
Piers said that was good and then he called McGovern a pickaninny and that set the whole thing off again.
He paused beside a bedstead welded together from a bunch of those pickaninny jockey-boys it had been against the law to have on your lawn in Knoxville.
Of course, pickaninny has happened along, but some of its uses are delicious.
When I was a little pickaninny, I knew more about fish and the ways of fish than you know now.
From time to time, she would see that little white pickaninny wandering about the plantation, and when she did, it stabbed at her heart, MERGING 413 for she had not yet provided lass with an heir and had no little baby of her own to love, and she was jealous of Easter, because of Queen.
He was bound to find out, by a slip, or a well-meaning acquaintance, or what if she had a baby, and a little pickaninny popped out?
The women would try and run back after their pickaninnies when they dropped, just like that heifer when Warrigal knocked her calf on the head to-day.
They and their gins and pickaninnies appeared to take great notice of the whole thing.
He never remembered any white children--but there were inevitably a dozen pickaninnies streaming in his trail, passionate admirers whom he kept in tow by the vividness of his imagination and the amount of trouble he was always getting them in and out of.
Here and there they passed a battered negro cabin, its oldest white-haired inhabitant smoking a corncob pipe beside the door, and half a dozen scantily clothed pickaninnies parading tattered dolls on the wild-grown grass in front.
Rising from it was an impressive expanse of bluegrass lawn, dotted with white plaster peacocks and black plaster pickaninnies holding hitching rings.
And that is not going to be jeopardized by have a bunch of pickaninnies running around this house.
Mammy must of been, after she squirted out us three pickaninnies all at once.
His frail wife near faints and is fanned by the fairest of pretty pickaninnies, M.
These little pickaninnies had no fear, he realized, because they did not know what waited for them in the Old South.