"Den lille kanin spiser."

Translation: The little rabbit eats.

[octavi.ers]

To me Kanin sounds like Canine (dogs, wolves, foxes and the like) but I searched, and it comes from ancient French "Conin", and what a surprise! in English for Rabbit, we can use Coney as well!

[Adalwolf313]

Awesome, thanks! I was just thinking of doing the research for this myself, but you beat me to it. It makes so much more sense now.

[octavi.ers]

you are also studying Spanish! en español, "rabbit" es "conejo", en catalán (Barcelona) es "cunill".

[Adalwolf313]

Haha... I actually haven't touched Spanish on here in over a year, but I did pick some up while I was in Peru last summer. Thanks for the little bit of romance etymology.

[Slartibartswift]

And in Italian is "coniglio". So two words different as kanin and coniglio are actually linked. :)

[Michael903913]

And in Breton it is konif...

[Tigadansk]

In German it's "Kaninchen"

[JohnItaly2]

So that explains why Sam called the rabbits that in The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King...

[FrozenTundraFoxy]

Ancient France or possibly Gaul which has a similar Galic relation to Irish. Coinín is rabbit in Irish.

[Sosoec]

I love danish! The german word for rabbit is "Kaninchen", -chen is a diminutive form, so literaly it means "little kanin", but "Kanin" doesn't exist in german. And now I can use Kanin!

[deactivated user]

It's "konijn" for rabbit and "konijntje" for little rabbit in Dutch.

[NicolaBeria]

I'm from Veneto and in my dialect we call the rabit "conejo" or "cunel" realy similar that in catalan! :)

[jvos90]

Why is "young" rabbit incorrect?

[Blockhause]

Because lille refers to size, not to age