1 August 2017
cony or coney
[koh-nee, kuhn-ee]
noun, plural conies.
1. the fur of a rabbit, especially when dyed to simulate Hudson seal.
2. the daman or other hyrax of the same genus.
3. the pika.
4. a rabbit.
5. Obsolete. a person who is easily tricked; gull; dupe.
Origin of cony
Old French, Latin
1150-1200; Middle English, back formation from conyes < Old French conis, plural of conil < Latin cunīculus rabbit, burrow, a word said to be of Iberian orig., according with evidence that the rabbit spread through Europe from NW Africa and the Iberian Peninsula
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for cony
Historical Examples
Upon the mountain tops the cony, or Little Chief Hare, stacks hay each autumn.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
The American cony lives on top of the world—on the crest of the continent.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
A merchant named cony did more to wreck the Protectorate by a suit at law than did the Cavaliers by their armed insurrection.
The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660
David Masson
The cony is found over a belt that extends from this altitude down to 9,500.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
One probably was the owner of the little haystack—the other the cony from the wrecked home.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
About all the cony has to do is to find the den and take possession.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
Far up the mountainside I found and saw an account of a cony adventure written in the snow.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
The cony appears something of a traveller, something of an explorer.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
The weasel is agile, powerful, slender bodied, and can follow a cony into the smaller hiding places of the den and capture him.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
But he clung to the cony and dragged it out of reach beneath a boulder.
Watched by Wild Animals
Enos A. Mills
Today’s quotes
It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
– Gore Vidal
On this day
1 August – the official birthday for all thoroughbred horses in the Southern Hemisphere.(see 1 January for Northern Hemisphere).
1 August 10BC – birth of Claudius, Roman Emperor. He was treated as an imbecile because he’d been born with a limp and slight deafness. As a result he was not seen as a threat by others and therefore survived the purges by Caligula and Tiberius. He was the last surviving man in his family following Caligula’s assassination, leading to him being declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard. He proved himself to be an able administrator and constructed many roads, aqueducts and canals across the empire. He successfully invaded Britain, something that previous emperors, including Caligula, had failed to do achieve. He was assassinated by poisoning, many believe by his wife. He was succeeded by his grand-nephew, Nero. Died 13 October 54AD.
1 August 1774 – Joseph Priestly discovers oxygen. Controversially, Carl Willhelm Scheele claims to have discovered oxygen in 1773, but did not publish his findings until 1777, well after Priestly published his own in 1775. Scheele claimed Priestly was an oxygen thief. Other claimants to the discovery of oxygen include Michal Sędziwój (in the 16th century) and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier who was working concurrently with Priestly and Scheele.
1 August 1794 – Whiskey Rebellion, which was a protest against a tax imposed by George Washington on the production of whiskey by grain growers.
1 August 1799 – France becomes the first country to introduce the metric system.
1 August 1834 – slavery officially abolished throughout the British Empire.
1 August 1882 – death of Henry Kendall, Australian poet. Born 18 April 1839.
1 August 1936 – Adolph Hitler opens the XI Olympiad in Berlin, Germany.