cotton-picking

cotton-picking
cotton-picking (adj.) as a deprecatory term first recorded in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but a similar noun meaning "contemptible person" dates to around 1919, perhaps with racist overtones that have faded over the years. Before mechanization, cotton picking was the most difficult labor on a cotton plantation.
I drove out to a number of the farms near Denison and found many very young white children working all day in the hot sun picking and dragging sacks of cotton. In one field the labor corps consisted of one woman and six children, one of them 5 years, one 6 years, one 7 years, one 9 years, and two about 11. The father was plowing. The 5 and 6 year olds worked all day as did the rest. The 7-year-old said he picked 50 pounds a day and the 9 year old 75 pounds. (A good picker averages several hundred a day.) School begins late on account of the cotton picking, but the children nearly all prefer school to the picking. Picking hours are long, hot, and deadly monotonous. While the very young children seem to enjoy it, very soon their distaste for it grows into all-absorbing hatred for all work. ["Field Notes of Lewis W. Hine, Child-Labor Conditions in Texas," report to U.S. Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations, 1916]

Etymology dictionary. 2014.

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  • cotton-picking — ☆ cotton picking [kät′ npik΄ən ] adj. Slang worthless, damned, hateful, etc.: used as a general intensive of opprobrium * * * cot·ton pick·ing (kŏtʹn pĭk ĭng) adj. Informal Used as an intensive: a cotton picking fool; out of your cotton picking… …   Universalium

  • cotton\ picking — • cotton picking • cotton pickin adj slang colloquial Worthless, crude, common, messy. Keep your cotton picking hands off my flowers! You ve got to clean up your room, son, this is a cotton pickin mess! …   Словарь американских идиом

  • cotton-picking — cotton .picking adj [only before noun] especially AmE old fashioned used to emphasize that you are annoyed or surprised ▪ Mind your own cotton picking business! …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • cotton picking — [cotton pickin ] {adj.}, {slang}, {colloquial} Worthless, crude, common, messy. * /Keep your cotton picking hands off my flowers!/ * /You ve got to clean up your room, son, this is a cotton pickin mess!/ …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • cotton picking — [cotton pickin ] {adj.}, {slang}, {colloquial} Worthless, crude, common, messy. * /Keep your cotton picking hands off my flowers!/ * /You ve got to clean up your room, son, this is a cotton pickin mess!/ …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • cotton-picking — ☆ cotton picking [kät′ npik΄ən ] adj. Slang worthless, damned, hateful, etc.: used as a general intensive of opprobrium …   English World dictionary

  • cotton-picking — adjective Date: circa 1952 1. damned used as a generalized expression of disapproval < a cotton picking hypocrite > 2. damned used as an intensive < out of his cotton picking mind Irving Kristol > …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • cotton-picking — AND cotton pickin’ mod. worthless; damned. (Folksy.) □ What’s the cotton pickin idea? □ Who is this cotton picking bigwig pushing us around? …   Dictionary of American slang and colloquial expressions

  • cotton-picking — 1. noun The harvesting of cotton The season of cotton picking commences in the latter part of July, and continues without intermission to the Christmas holidays. 2. adjective a) Of little value, or for emphasis. b) Describes a person who tends to …   Wiktionary

  • Cotton-picking — unworthy; simple: out of one s cotton picking mind (originally US slang (1950s)) …   Dictionary of Australian slang

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