Other forms: raccoons
A raccoon is the masked grey animal that raids bins at night in North America. Dark rings round the eyes and a striped tail.
Its front paws are remarkably dexterous, which is why bin lids and latches are no obstacle at all, and why cities have largely given up trying to outwit them. They wash food in water when they can, which gave the species its Latin name. The word came from an Algonquian language. British English sometimes spells it racoon with one c, and both are accepted.
1nounraccoonA small North American mammal with a black eye mask and ringed tail.
“A raccoon had got into the rubbish again.”
Raccoon comes from Powhatan, written down as arocoun in 1608, from a word meaning he scratches with his hands. The animal was named for what the settlers watched it doing.
pim
ärähkun
English, today
raccoon
Built from
From arocoun (1608), from pim ärähkun, from ärähkuněm (“he scratches with his hands”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA