carny

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑː(ɹ)ni/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)ni

Clipping of carnival.

• carney
• carnie

carny (countable and uncountable, plural carnies)

1. (informal, countable) A person who works in a carnival (often one who uses exaggerated showmanship or fraud).

   Synonym: showie (Australia)

   • 1961, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, New York: Avon, →OCLC, page 276:

     The Reverend Foster, self-ordained—or directly ordained by God, depending on authority cited—had an instinct for the pulse of his times stronger than that of a skilled carnie sizing up a mark.

   • 2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:

     Bart spies an opportunity to make a quick buck so he channels his inner carny and posits his sinking house as a natural wonder of the world and its inhabitants as freaks, barking to dazzled spectators, “Behold the horrors of the Slanty Shanty! See the twisted creatures that dwell within! Meet Cue-Ball, the man with no hair!”

2. (uncountable) The jargon used by carnival workers.
3. (informal, countable) A carnival.

Of unknown origin.

• carney

carny (third-person singular simple present carnies, present participle carnying, simple past and past participle carnied)

1. (dialectal) To cajole, wheedle, or coax.
   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:

     The crossing at St. Martin’s Church was mine fust of all; and when the other lads come to it I didn’t take no heed of ’em—only for that I’d have been a bright boy by now, but they carnied me over like; for when I tried to turn ’em off they’d say, in a carnying way, ‘Oh, let us stay on,’ so I never took no heed of ’em.

carny

1. (dialectal) Flattery.

• “carny”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

• nacry, Cryan, Caryn, Cyran

• zarny (obsolete)

From Proto-Slavic *čьrnъ.

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡sarnɨ/

carny

1. black

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928) “carny”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999) “carny”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag