negro

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“
The ballot for the negro was a logical necessity, and it was a matter of the least possible consequence whether the granting of it would "stultify ourselves" or not He insisted that the true policy was to give the Southern negroes a probation of fifteen or twenty years to prepare for the ballot.

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  1. A black man; specifically, one of a race of men characterized by a black skin and hair of a woolly or crisp nature. Negroes are distinguished from the other races by various other peculiarities—such as the projection of the visage in advance of the forehead; the prolongation of the upper and lower jaws; tile small facial angle; the flatness of the forehead and of the hinder part of the head; the short, broad, and flat nose; and the thick projecting lips. The negro race is generally regarded as comprehending the native inhabitants of Sudan, Senegambia, and the region southward to the vicinity of the equator and the great lakes, and their descendants in America and elsewhere; in a wider sense it is used to comprise also many other tribes further south, as the Zulus and Kafirs. The word negro is often loosely applied to other dark or black-skinned races, and to mixed breeds. As designating a “race,” it is sometimes written with a capital. Toward the south of this region is the kyngedome of Guinea, with Senega, Iaiofo, Gambra, and manye other regions of the blacke Moores cauled Ethiopians or Negros, all whiche are watered with the ryuer Negro, cauled in owlde tyme Niger. R. Eden, First Three English Books on America. [(ed. Arber), p. 374.
  2. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of black men or negroes: as, negro blood; negro dances. It is often asked what Races are Negro, as the meaning of the term is not well defined. … The word is not a National appellation, but denotes a physical type, of which the tribes in North Guinea are the representatives. When these characteristics are not all present, the Race is not Negro, though black and woolly haired. R. N. Cust, Mod. Langs. of Africa, p. 53.
  3. Negro bat Vesperugo maurus, a bat of a dark or black color, widely distributed in Europe and Asia.
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Etymologies (1)

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  1. = French nègre (later English neger, now nigger = D. G. Danish Swedish neger = Russian negrŭ: see nigger), from Spanish Portuguese Italian negro, black, as a noun, negro, masculine, negra, feminine, a black person, a negro; Italian also nero = Provencal negre, nier = Old French negre, nigre, necre, ner, neir, French noir, black, from Latin niger (nigr-), black, dark, dusk, applied to the night, the sky, a storm, etc., to pitch, etc., to ivy, etc., to the complexion (‘dark’), etc., and also to the black people of Africa, etc. (but the ordinary terms for ‘African negro’ or ‘African’ were Æthiops and Afer); also, Fig., sad, mournful, gloomy, ill-omened, fatal, etc. Cf. Sanskrit niç, night; but whether Sanskrit nic, night, is related to nahta, night, or either to L. niger, black, is not clear. From Latin niger are also ult. English nigrescent, nigritude, Nigella, niello, anneal (in part), etc. The words Moor, blackamoor, in the same sense, are much older in English
 

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