eeny

a word from a popular children's counting-out rhyme, recorded in the form eeny, meeny, miny, mo by 1888, when it was listed among 862 "Rhymes and doggerels for counting out" in Henry Carrington Bolton's book "The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children" [New York]. Bolton describes it as "the favorite with American children, actually reported from nearly every State in the Union." He notes similar forms in notes similar forms in German (Ene, meni, mino), Dutch, and and Platt-Deutsch (Ene, mine, mike, maken), and, from Cornwall, Eena, meena, moina, mite. The form eeny meeny mony mi is recorded in U.S. from 1873, and Hanna, mana, mona, mike is said to have been used in New York in 1815.