Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person having one-quarter Black ancestry. See Usage Note at octoroon.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The offspring of a mulatto and a white person; a person having one fourth African blood.
- Fourth in descent from a negro parent, one parent in each generation having been white.
Wiktionary
- n. historical A person of three-fourths Caucasian descent and one fourth African descent.
- adj. historical Having three-fourths Caucasian descent and one-fourth African descent.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The offspring of a mulatto and a white person; a person quarter-blooded.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an offspring of a mulatto and a white parent; a person who is one-quarter black
Etymologies
- Alteration of Spanish cuarterón ("offspring of European and mestizo"), from cuarto ("fourth"), from Latin quartus ("fourth") (Wiktionary)
- Alteration of Spanish cuarterón, from cuarto, quarter, from Latin quārtus. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“No: not half black, only a quarter -- what they call a quadroon in the”
“Ah, was it Miss Dumont's -- that is, the quadroon's servant.”
“On the same evening, what was called a quadroon ball took place.”
“A quadroon is the child of a mestize mother and a white father, as a mestize is the child of a mulatto mother and a white father.”
“In Louisiana or the West Indies she would have been called a quadroon, or more loosely, a creole; in North Carolina, where fine distinctions were not the rule in matters of color, she was sufficiently differentiated when described as a bright mulatto.”
“Even his own child, by a black woman or a mulatto, when the child is called a quadroon, and is very often as white as any English child, is frequently”
Slave life in Virginia and Kentucky, or, Fifty years of slavery in the Southern States of America,
“The love of the quadroon was my source of pleasure; but, alas! pain predominated as my thoughts dwelt upon the Creole!”
“Havanna, and the "quadroon" balls of New Orleans -- everywhere in the crowded haunts of the world.”
“Alice Cromley was a quadroon, the greatest Creole beauty the Vieux Carré had ever seen.”
“In 1890, at the height of the Jim Crow laws and kind of an obsession with defining what black people were, the federal government allowed you, on your census form, to be white, black, mulatto, quadroon or octoroon.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘quadroon’.
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phrontistery - q
from phrontistery.info
quoz, quotuple, quotum, quotition, quotiety, quotidian, quotha, quotennial, quotatious, quorate, quondam, quomodocunquize and 227 more...
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-oons (once of more than one syllable)
Originally this list was to contain multisyllabic words that end in "oon," but as you can see from the comments, all hell broke loose.
doubloon, poltroon, spittoon, patroon, dragoon, bassoon, platoon, typhoon, rangoon, maroon, pontoon, monsoon and 96 more...
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snarkout's Words
agenbite, scandent, vulpine, ratel, corvid, magpie, meline, musteline, ecdysiast, waxwing, abecedarian, guillotine and 111 more...
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Oh them words, them words
My fancies, my cudgels.
liquescent, ferly, lamia, basilisk, trigon, fantast, stirp, tristesse, enfleurage, stemma, formicary, lacrimation and 346 more...
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botello360's list
ruminate, steel, bifurcation, arrivederci, portage, tactile, ruminant, rift, anecdotage, diacritic, cud, hull and 399 more...
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Personal glossary
pasquinade, dilatory, afflatus, expatiate, cambric, mantua, marplot, henotic, brio, hebetude, pertinacious, demijohn and 79 more...
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Encountered in reading
rill, quadroon, befurbelowed, manifold, promulgating, muster-day, hogshead, potations, rubicund, tophet, toper, ferule and 44 more...
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monkey's Words
callow, feckless, puissant, erstwhile, imbroglio, mawkish, lugubrious, cogent, impugn, sweetpea, perfidy, specious and 43 more...
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The Awakening
Interesting words from "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin.
befurbelowed, lugger, pension, quadroon, bonbons, peignoir, rockaway, friandises, creole, accouchements, vouchsafe, remonstrate and 30 more...
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Ulysses
Words from James Joyce's novel.
cozen, trull, beshrew, resile, auspicate, objurgate, quondam, aprosopia, catamenia, antelucan, serried, bemoil and 13 more...
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"A Ballad of Remembrance"
hoodoo, schizoid, arcane, schizoid, pinwheel, death's-head, coruscation, glaucous, lavaliere, vendeuse, elegiac, quadroon and 3 more...
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The Awakening
Neat words in Kate Chopin's The Awakening
nutriment, quadroon, pirogue, furbelow, befurbelowed, jalousie, atelier, prunella, perambulated, perambulate, cicatrice, palpitant and 2 more...
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Culture
Various cultural terms, including slang
octoroon, quadroon, mulatto, clodpate, pandar, disgavel, alfaqui, congius
Tweets
Looking for tweets for quadroon.
karensa "There were slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys, boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones, and a merry little quadroon, who could not be taken in elsewhere, but who was welcome to the `Bhaer-garten', though some people predicted that his admission would ruin the school."
- Louisa M. Alcott, Little Women, 1869 Aug 8, 2009
bilby "Neville had a 'three-point' plan: first, the full-bloods would die out; second, take half-castes away from their mothers; third, control marriages among half-castes and so encourage intermarriage with the white community. The 'young half-blood maiden is a pleasant, placid, complacent person as a rule, while the quadroon (one-quarter Aboriginal) is often strikingly attractive, with her oftimes auburn hair, rosy freckled colouring, and good figure ...' These were the sort of people who should be elevated 'to our own plane'. In this way, it would be possible to 'eventually forget that there were ever any Aborigines in Australia'."
- Colin Tatz, 'Genocide in Australia'. Oct 27, 2008
yarb Generally speaking, each person's caste is decided by the quality of the blood, which shows itself, too plainly to be concealed, at first sight. Yet the least drop of Spanish blood, if it be only of quadroon or octoroon, is sufficient to raise one from the position of a serf, and entitle him to wear a suit of clothes,-- boots, hat, cloak, spurs, long knife, all complete, though coarse and dirty as may be,-- and to call himself Espanol, and to hold property, if he can get any.
- Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, ch. 13 Sep 6, 2008