Coney-catching Coney-catching Coney-catching is Elizabethan slang for theft through trickery. It comes from the word "coney" (sometimes spelled "conny"), meaning a rabbit raised for the table and thus tame. A coney-catcher was a thief or con man. It was a practice in medieval and Renaissance England in which devious people on the street would try to con or cheat vulnerable or gullible pedestrians. The term appears in "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" by William Shakespeare, and in the John Florio translation of Montaigne's essay, "Of the Cannibals." The term was first used in print by
Coney Island (restaurant) Coney Island (restaurant) A Coney Island is a type of restaurant that is popular in the northern United States, particularly in Michigan, as well as the name for the Coney Island hot dog after which the restaurant style is named. "Coney Islands", as they are known, are a unique type of Greek American restaurant. Two of the most well-known Coney Island restaurants are the Lafayette Coney Island and the American Coney Island, which are located in adjacent buildings on Lafayette Boulevard in downtown Detroit. They have a common root, with the original restaurant having been established by Greek immigrant brothers