Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. Used as a disparaging term for a Black person: "You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger” ( James Baldwin).
- n. Used as a disparaging term for a member of any dark-skinned people.
- n. Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a member of any socially, economically, or politically deprived group of people: "Gun owners are the new niggers . . . of society” ( John Aquilino).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A dark-skinned person, especially a person of, or primarily of, Negro descent; a black person.
- n. A person of Negro descent who acts in an unapproved manner, usually as an archetypical badass.
- n. Informal term of address.
- v. To clear land by laying light pieces of round timber across the trunks of the trees and setting fire to them at the point of contact, by which means the trees are slowly burned through.
- v. To behave as a stereotypical black person.
- v. To treat as inferior.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A negro; -- in vulgar derision or depreciation. It is usually intended and interpreted as highly insulting and vulgar.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Same as niggard, 2.
- n. A black man; a negro.
- n. A native of the East Indies or one of the Australian aborigines.
- n. A black caterpillar, the larva of Athalia centifolia, the turnip saw-fly.
- n. A. kind of holothurian common off the coast of Cornwall, England: so called by Cornish fishermen.
- n. A steam-capstan on some Mississippi river boats, used to haul the boat over bars and snags by a rope fastened to a tree on the bank.
- n. A strong iron-bound timber with sharp teeth or spikes protruding from its front face, forming part of the machinery of a sawmill, and used in canting logs. etc.
- n. An impurity in the covering of an electrical conductor which serves to make a partial short circuit, and thus becomes sufficiently heated to burn and destroy the insulation.
- To burn (logs already charred or left unconsumed by former fires): with off: also, to burn (a log) in two in the middle.
- To exhaust (soil or land) by working it year after year without manure: with out.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. (ethnic slur) extremely offensive name for a Black person
Etymologies
Examples
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Joe says so; but Joe is a nigger, and what does a _nigger_ know? '
The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 Devoted to Literature and National Policy
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You'll be what they call a nigger-stealer then, and I a runaway slave-but they won't catch us.
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As for myself, would my opinion of Bob Dylan have changed if I'd found out that he'd killed a man, or that he was a wife-beater, or that he used the term "nigger" in private conversations?
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You may be aware enough to avoid using the term nigger or comparing Blacks to monkeys, however; because you have been steeped in a racist culture you cannot avoid taking advantage of your privilege.
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Black people have attempted throughout their own history to take and seize the term nigger and turn it around to make it something positive.
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He had often heard the term nigger used in its reproachful sense, but never before had it been applied to him or his, at least in his presence.
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And why is it ok for you to use the term "whitey", but someone else can't use the term nigger?
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For example, while people of all races may find themselves using the word "nigger" without intending to beÂderogatoryÂtoward black people however implausible that circumstance might be, people of color are the only ones who are likely to be referenced when the "n-word" is uttered in discourse.
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For example, while people of all races may find themselves using the word "nigger" without intending to bederogatorytoward black people however implausible that circumstance might be, people of color are the only ones who are likely to be referenced when the "n-word" is uttered in discourse.
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Dear Mexican: These days, using the word "nigger" is considered so offensive that, in its place, we now use the term "n-word."
Gustavo Arellano: ¡ASK A MEXICAN!: "Illegals" and The "N-Word"
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