the.com/coney

means An old word for a rabbit, especially a grown one farmed or hunted for its meat and fur — and the likely secret source of the chili-dog nickname.

from From Old French 'conil' or 'conis', tracing back to Latin 'cuniculus', meaning rabbit or burrow — a word the Romans themselves may have borrowed from an older Iberian language. English 'coney' once rhymed with 'honey' and was common in old Bibles and rabbit-fur trade. It faded from polite use partly because, over the centuries, it drifted into slang for something else entirely, and people got squeamish saying it. How it ended up stuck to chili dogs is murky — one guess ties it to 'Coney Island,' the New York beach whose name comes from the Dutch 'Konijn Eiland,' or 'Rabbit Island,' once overrun with wild rabbits.