different between chirp vs cooning

English

Etymology

From Middle English *chirpen (attested only in the derivative Middle English chirpinge, cyrpynge, chyrypynge (“chirping”). Compare Middle English chirken and chirmen. More at chirk, chirm. Compare also Middle English chirten (“to smack, chirrup”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /t???(?)p/
• Rhymes: -??(r)p

Noun

chirp (plural chirps)

1. A short, sharp or high note or noise, as of a bird or insect.
2. (radar, sonar, radio telescopy etc.) A pulse of signal whose frequency sweeps through a band of frequencies for the duration of the pulse.

Derived terms

• downchirp
• upchirp

Translations

Verb

chirp (third-person singular simple present chirps, present participle chirping, simple past and past participle chirped)

1. (intransitive) To make a short, sharp, cheerful note, as of small birds or crickets.
2. (intransitive) To speak in a high-pitched staccato.
3. (transitive, radar, sonar, radio telescopy etc.) To modify (a pulse of signal) so that it sweeps through a band of frequencies throughout its duration.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To cheer up; to make (someone) happier.
5. (Canada) To speak rapid insulting comical banter back and forth.

Derived terms

• chirping cup

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ku?n??/

Noun

cooning (uncountable)

1. Racoon hunting.
   • 1876, John Burroughs, Winter Sunshine, part 1, Hurd and Houghton, page 76

     At this time, cooning in the remote interior is a famous pastime. As this animal is entirely nocturnal in its habits it is hunted only at night.

   • 1875, John Burroughs, Winter Sunshine, part 2, Kessinger Publishing (2004), pages 72–73

     But if he [the dog] strikes a trail, you presently hear...loud and repeated barking as he reaches the foot of the tree in which the coon has taken refuge. Then follows a pellmell rush of the cooning party up the hill, into the woods, through the brush and the darkness

   • 1932, The Atlantic Monthly, volume information kept strictly confidential by Google Books, page 635

     These are the kind of men who have served their time and taken all the six degrees necessary to a scout's full education, “foxing, snaking, moling, cooning, possuming, and, if need be, wolfing ;” who riding at a canter through the woods, will stop their horse...

   • Says I, “Davy Crockett, how do you hunt without a gun?”

     “Oh,” says he, “Pompey Smash, if you’ll follow along with Davy,

     I’ll soon show you how for to grin a coon crazy.”

   • 1962, Ernest Thompson Seton, Two Little Savages, Courier Dover Publications, ?ISBN, page 276

     “Aren’t there any Coons ’round here, Mr. Clark?”

     “Oh, I reckon so. Y-e-s! Down a piece in the hardwood bush near Widdy Biddy Baggs’s place there’s lots o’ likely Cooning ground.”

Verb

cooning

1. present participle of coon