coon's age
1
9.9
- idiom
- /kunz eɪdʒ/
- NSFW
:
un siglo
- "Honey, you ain't done diddly-squat in a coon's age, what I hear."
Examples
-
I ain't seen you in a coon's age.
-
I can't believe how much time has passed; it's been a coon's age since our last conversation.
-
- I ain't seen you in a coon's age.
-
Ain't seen ya in a coon's age, boy.
-
It's an old address book I found in a coat I haven't worn in a coon's age.
-
"It's been a coon's age." "I thought I'd ring down to the boondocks while I'm waiting for a client to show up."
Fiction book (1999) -
Beauregard, I ain't seen you in a coon's age.
-
I haven't seen you in a coon's age.
-
It's been a coon's age since we last met.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A period that lasts much longer than usual
31
6.8
A very long time that feels almost endless
A very long time since something happened
A very long time that feels much longer than usual
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
coon's + age
Although 'age' denotes a long period, the possessive 'coon's' is not semantically productive or transparent to a learner (its origin is dialectal/historical and not predictable from 'coon'). The overall meaning 'a very long time' is idiomatic and culturally specific, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the phrase meaning.
Etymology
The idiom coon's age likely comes from people shortening 'raccoon's age' because they pictured a raccoon living many seasons. So the parts coon's and age came to mean a very long life, and coon's age now means 'a very long time'.