Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An inferior kind of tobacco pressed in a twisted form.
  • noun A rounded boulder or rock; especially, a roundish black rock on the coast of Florida, sometimes covered with only a few inches of water.
  • noun Also, applied to boulders of chromite in the region north of Baltimore, Maryland, and generally, among English-speaking peoples, to any tough black rock in loose boulders.
  • noun In swampy land, tufts or clumps of sedge and grass growing up stiffly, and somewhat resembling a black head.
  • noun A spool or capstan for lifting or hauling, formed on the end of a shaft which is turned by power: so callod bocause it is usually black. Also known as a wildcat.
  • noun In botany:
  • noun The cone-flower or black-eyed-Susan, Rudbeckia hirta.
  • noun The common greenbrior or catbrior, Smilax rotundifolia.
  • noun A towing bitt; an upright timber to which towing hawsers are secured.
  • noun A fresh-water mussel, Quadrula ebena, of the Mississippi River, used in the manufacture of pearl buttons. It is rather small with a thick shell and a black or dark brown outer skin.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun archaic A strong black chewing tobacco, usually in twisted plug form; negro head.

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

  • noun nautical, dated A bollard made from an old cannon.
  • noun geology, archaic, colloquial A geode.
  • noun A coneflower.
  • noun An isolated part of a coral reef.
  • noun US, Alaska, dated (Can we clean up(+) this sense?) A tussock (clump of plant material), found on tundra.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Nigger +‎ head: various things were so called because they were thought to resemble a black person's head.

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Examples

  • J.F. Boepple began, at Muscatine, Iowa, to utilize the unio or "niggerhead" shells found along the Mississippi.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various

  • The boundaries of the claim totalled nearly a mile, and most of it was over the uneven surface of a snow-covered, niggerhead flat.

    THE RACE FOR NUMBER ONE 2010

  • The foe things your niggerhead needs to be fitten for the Big Water.

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • The boundaries of the claim totalled nearly a mile, and most of it was over the uneven surface of a snow-covered, niggerhead flat.

    THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 1993

  • One of them, in racial contempt, dubbed it “the niggerhead machine,” the name by which it was popularly known later.

    World’s Great Men of Color J. A. Rogers 1947

  • Though Matzeliger was mocked about his color, and his machine called “niggerhead” in derision, he came to be considered white as the great value of his machine grew.

    World’s Great Men of Color J. A. Rogers 1947

  • Though Matzeliger was mocked about his color, and his machine called “niggerhead” in derision, he came to be considered white as the great value of his machine grew.

    World’s Great Men of Color J. A. Rogers 1947

  • One of them, in racial contempt, dubbed it “the niggerhead machine,” the name by which it was popularly known later.

    World’s Great Men of Color J. A. Rogers 1947

  • One of them, in racial contempt, dubbed it “the niggerhead machine,” the name by which it was popularly known later.

    World’s Great Men of Color J. A. Rogers 1947

  • Though Matzeliger was mocked about his color, and his machine called “niggerhead” in derision, he came to be considered white as the great value of his machine grew.

    World’s Great Men of Color J. A. Rogers 1947

Comments

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  • Amazing how quick people are to pretend racism doesn't exist. Sure, the word means a few different things, but if you look, it is obvious that those words had a racist origin. This is not like "niggardly" and Perry does have a very real problem here.

    October 4, 2011