coconut

English

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coconut

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• cocoanut (dated)
• cokernut (archaic)

Etymology

From coco +‎ nut. In reference to assimilated Hispanic or Black people, derived from the fruit's exotic origins and the slur that they are "brown on the outside, white on the inside". In reference to Polynesians, from the ubiquity of coconut palms in the area.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkoʊ.kə.nʌt/,
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkəʊ.kə.nʌt/, ,
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈkəʉ.kə.nat/,

  • Audio (AU)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊkənʌt

Noun

coconut (countable and uncountable, plural coconuts)

1. A fruit of the coconut palm (not a true nut), Cocos nucifera, having a fibrous husk surrounding a large seed.
   • 1699, William Dampier, chapter X, in A New Voyage Round the World. , 4th corrected edition, volume I, London: Printed for James Knapton, , →OCLC, page 291:

     The Coco-nut Trees grow by the Sea, on the Weſtern ſide in great Groves, 3 or 4 Miles in length, and a Mile or two broad. This tree is in ſhape like the Cabbage-tree, and at a diſtance they are not to be known each from other, only the Coco-nut Tree is fuller of Branches ; but the Cabbage-tree generally is much higher, tho' the Coco-nut Trees in ſome places are very high.

2. A hard-shelled seed of this fruit, having white flesh and a fluid-filled central cavity.
3. (uncountable) The edible white flesh of this fruit.
4. The coconut palm.
5. (derogatory, ethnic slur) A Hispanic or other dark-skinned person considered to have overly assimilated to white culture, a race traitor.
   • 1982, Richard Rodriguez, “Profession”, in Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez‎, Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 162:

     After that I was regarded as comic. I became a ‘coconut’—someone brown on the outside, white on the inside. I was the bleached academic—more white than the anglo professors. In my classes several students glared at me, clearly seeing in me the person they feared ever becoming. Who was I, after all, but some comic Queequeg, holding close to my breast a reliquary containing the white powder of a dead European civilization?

6. (South Africa, Australia, derogatory, ethnic slur) A black person considered to have overly assimilated to white culture, a black race traitor.

   Synonyms: Oreo, Uncle Tom

   • 2016 June 8, “Containment”, in Cleverman, episode 2, spoken by Waruu West :

     Your mum is a white whore, you coconut.

7. (New Zealand, derogatory, ethnic slur) A Pacific islander.
8. (slang) A female breast.
9. (slang) The human head.

   Synonym: nut

   • 2007, Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness, 2, page 19:

     [Ashley J. Williams shoots a zombified version of the Winter Soldier in the head.]
     Dazzler: Oh my God...thank you! I-i-is he--
     Ashley J. Williams: A double-barrel boomstick blast straight through the coconut? Trust me, babe--he's not comin' back from that one.

   • 2021, Dennis Glover, The Last Man in Europe‎:

     'How unfortunate.'
     'Yes. It's rather causing him to go off his coconut. He's met a girl, you see. A peach.'

Hypernyms

• (fruit): fruit
• (POC assimilated into white culture): race traitor

Coordinate terms

• (POC assimilated into white culture): banana, egg, Oreo, Twinkie

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Japanese: ココナッツ (kokonattsu)

Translations