house nigger
English
Etymology
By analogy with slaves that worked predominantly indoors during US slavery who were trained with more skills than basic field hands or plantation niggers.
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
house nigger (plural house niggers)
- (dated, now offensive) A black slave that worked as a domestic as opposed to manual laborer.
- 2008, Julia L. Mickenberg, Philip Nel, Tales for little rebels: a collection of radical children's literature, page 195
- If massa was sick, house nigger would come 'round and say, “Massa we sick, ain't we?
- 2008, Julia L. Mickenberg, Philip Nel, Tales for little rebels: a collection of radical children's literature, page 195
- (derogatory, ethnic slur, idiomatic) A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or traitor
- 2003, John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle, page 162:
- "You look like a house nigger."
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