Definitions

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

  • noun dated, literary A black female.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French nègress, from nègre. Equivalent to Negro +‎ -ess.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word negress.

Examples

  • The negresses are examined by a female specially appointed for that purpose, and the negress is sold on the faith of her statement being correct.

    Slave Auctions in Richmond, Virginia 1861

  • It is mentioned, as an instance of fidelity, that a negress is the gaoler of the women in Tangier.

    Travels in Morocco 2003

  • Ketchum 1.169 speaks of a negress, aged thirteen, who gave birth to a well-developed child which began to menstruate at ten years and nine months and at thirteen became pregnant; hence the negress was a grandmother at twenty-five years and nine months.

    Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine 1896

  • At last two dinars stuck to the dough and she drew them through the fissure and returned to her own chamber; then, calling the negress, she gave her the ducats saying, "Go thou to the Bazar and buy us some mutton and rice and clarified butter; and do thou also bring us some fresh bread and spices and return with them without delay."

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • There were a couple of long-winded titles for different works and shows where the word "negress" was prominent - partially as a device and partially as a way of distancing myself from myself, or liberating myself from myself, or something.

    Robert Ayers: "Almost Political By Accident." A Conversation With Artist Kara Walker. Robert Ayers 2010

  • The problem is that the overarching joke of my work was that very early on I positioned myself as a "negress", and there was a fictional construct that embraced this anachronistic and totally racist naming that I used as a tool.

    Robert Ayers: "Almost Political By Accident." A Conversation With Artist Kara Walker. Robert Ayers 2010

  • To Rawlings, Zora was a "negress"; to Hurston, they were both just Southerners, writers and women.

    Southern Soulmates Stuart Ferguson 2010

  • The problem is that the overarching joke of my work was that very early on I positioned myself as a "negress", and there was a fictional construct that embraced this anachronistic and totally racist naming that I used as a tool.

    Robert Ayers: "Almost Political By Accident." A Conversation With Artist Kara Walker. Robert Ayers 2010

  • The problem is that the overarching joke of my work was that very early on I positioned myself as a "negress", and there was a fictional construct that embraced this anachronistic and totally racist naming that I used as a tool.

    Robert Ayers: "Almost Political By Accident." A Conversation With Artist Kara Walker. Robert Ayers 2010

  • There were a couple of long-winded titles for different works and shows where the word "negress" was prominent - partially as a device and partially as a way of distancing myself from myself, or liberating myself from myself, or something.

    Robert Ayers: "Almost Political By Accident." A Conversation With Artist Kara Walker. Robert Ayers 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.