poor white trash

poor white trash

English

Etymology

First attested in 1835.

Noun

poor white trash (uncountable)

1. (US, obsolete, ethnic slur, used by black slaves) White person or people employed in a servile position, for example, as a butler.

   Synonym: mean white

   • [1835 May 30, The London Literary Gazette; and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c.of the collected Literary Gazette […] for the year 1835‎, number 958, London, page 338:

     In the south, there are no servants but blacks; for the greater proportion of domestics being slaves all species of servitude whatever is looked upon as a degradation; and the slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as ‘poor white trash’.]

   • 1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, OCLC 1049770437; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, OCLC 20350211, part I, page 17:

     “Huccome po’ w’ite trash buy any niggers? Dey ain’ never owned mo’n fo’ at de mostes’.”

2. (US, modern, derogatory, ethnic slur) White trash; poor, uneducated white person or people of low social status.
   • 1991, Ted Tally, The Silence of the Lambs, spoken by Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins):

     Good nutrition's given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling?

Derived terms

• white trash