"moon cricket" meaning in English

See moon cricket in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: moon crickets [plural]
Etymology: From moon + cricket. Perhaps a reference to slaves singing songs during the night. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|moon|cricket}} moon + cricket Head templates: {{en-noun}} moon cricket (plural moon crickets)
  1. (US, slang, ethnic slur) A black person. Tags: US, ethnic, slang, slur

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "moon",
        "3": "cricket"
      },
      "expansion": "moon + cricket",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From moon + cricket. Perhaps a reference to slaves singing songs during the night.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "moon crickets",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "moon cricket (plural moon crickets)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English ethnic slurs",
          "parents": [
            "Ethnic slurs",
            "Offensive terms",
            "Terms by usage"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2018, Tzvi Peckar III, Mini Thins, page 285:",
          "text": "Her Dad had been someone her Mom didn't know in Houston. I always used to joke, \"Maybe he was a Moon-Cricket from Alabama,\" but Trish is totally not black.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "text": "Quoted in 2020, Leslie Picca, Joe Feagin, Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage\nWhen we were leaving it was getting dark and my husband says to me “look at all of those moon crickets.” I confusingly asked him what he had meant by that. When we got into the car, he explained to me that all of the black people walking around under the moonlight look like a bunch of crickets scurrying around."
        },
        {
          "text": "Rooney Baxter, The Bluegrass Kid (page 182), 2015.\nThey don't have a good enough reason to come at us now. And besides, moon crickets do drive-bys. This feels like a message from someone else."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A black person."
      ],
      "id": "en-moon_cricket-en-noun-PG6l68SO",
      "links": [
        [
          "ethnic",
          "ethnic"
        ],
        [
          "slur",
          "slur"
        ],
        [
          "black",
          "black"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, slang, ethnic slur) A black person."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "ethnic",
        "slang",
        "slur"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "moon cricket"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "moon",
        "3": "cricket"
      },
      "expansion": "moon + cricket",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From moon + cricket. Perhaps a reference to slaves singing songs during the night.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "moon crickets",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "moon cricket (plural moon crickets)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English compound terms",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English ethnic slurs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2018, Tzvi Peckar III, Mini Thins, page 285:",
          "text": "Her Dad had been someone her Mom didn't know in Houston. I always used to joke, \"Maybe he was a Moon-Cricket from Alabama,\" but Trish is totally not black.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "text": "Quoted in 2020, Leslie Picca, Joe Feagin, Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage\nWhen we were leaving it was getting dark and my husband says to me “look at all of those moon crickets.” I confusingly asked him what he had meant by that. When we got into the car, he explained to me that all of the black people walking around under the moonlight look like a bunch of crickets scurrying around."
        },
        {
          "text": "Rooney Baxter, The Bluegrass Kid (page 182), 2015.\nThey don't have a good enough reason to come at us now. And besides, moon crickets do drive-bys. This feels like a message from someone else."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A black person."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "ethnic",
          "ethnic"
        ],
        [
          "slur",
          "slur"
        ],
        [
          "black",
          "black"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, slang, ethnic slur) A black person."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "ethnic",
        "slang",
        "slur"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "moon cricket"
}

Download raw JSONL data for moon cricket meaning in English (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (ca09fec and c40eb85). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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