Definition of "coney" [co•ney]

• A rabbit, especially the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). (noun)
• The fur of a rabbit. (noun)
• See pika. (noun)
• See hyrax. (noun)
• A grouper (Epinephelus fulvus) of the tropical Atlantic, having dark brown or sharply bicolored skin and a few blue and black spots. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Such is the hippopotamus, and such is the hyrax, the remarkable rock-haunting animal, which in the authorised translation of the Scriptures is called the "coney," and which in the Revised Version is allowed in the margin to retain its Hebrew name, "shaphan.""
• "They usually lie in the open, though often found in graves and in holes in the rocks, from which I have thought that they might be the "coney" mentioned in Scripture."
• "_ “The coney is a lytel beste dwellynge in an hole of the erthe/& thore as he vseth he encreaseth very moche, and therfore he is profitable for man, for he casteth oftentymes in the yere ..."