[Short for RACCOON. Sense 2, perhaps after Zip Coon, an African-American character (depicted as an upstart freeman) in the song "Zip Coon" frequently sung in 19th-century blackface minstrel shows (the character perhaps being so named in reference to the black facial mask of the raccoon and to the practice of hunting and eating raccoons frequently mentioned in minstrel show songs), possibly influenced by 19th-century slang coon, rural white American (often one of modest means and opposed to the slave-owning Southern establishment), fellow, so called in reference to the association of coonskin with American frontiersmen.]