Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A mixed race person, especially if mostly white in ancestry, appearance and culture.
  • noun A member of an old mixed race group, particularly those groups which identify more with their white ancestry than with their black or Native American ancestry, like the Melungeons and the Brass Ankles.
  • noun A person who is mostly white and less than one eighth black.
  • noun In the West Indies, a person who is one eighth black (an octoroon).
  • adjective Of mixed race people, especially if mostly white in ancestry, appearance and culture.
  • adjective Of an old mixed race group, particularly those groups which identify more with their white ancestry than with their black or Native American ancestry.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Usually from Middle French mestis ("a person of mixed race"), from Latin mixtus (Modern French métis). Cognate with Spanish mestizo. Sometimes from Colonial Louisiana French mestif "child of an Octoroon and a white person" (15/16 white, 1/16 black), from Old French mestif ("mongrel")

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Examples

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