shvartze

shvartze

English

Alternative forms

• schvartze
• schwartza
• shvartzer (masculine)

Etymology

Borrowed from Yiddish שוואַרצע‎ (shvartse), feminine and plural form of שוואַרץ‎ (shvarts, “black”). The feminine form may have been generalized from the use of the term to refer to a female domestic worker. Doublet of swart.

Noun

shvartze (plural shvartze or shvartzes)

1. (chiefly US, offensive, ethnic slur) A person of sub-Saharan African descent; a black person.
   • 1969, Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint, New York: Vintage, 1994, “The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met,” p. 12,

     […] she irons better even than the schvartze,

   • 1975, Robert Greenfield, The Spiritual Supermarket, New York: Saturday Review Press / E. P. Dutton & Co., p. 6,

     From the rabbi to the “shvartze,” the black man who turned on the synagogue’s lights on Saturdays, he was liked.

   • 1988, Leon Uris, Mitla Pass, New York: Doubleday, Part 3, “Baltimore 1902-1913,” p. 270,

     […] they were able to afford a full-time shvartze to keep the house.

   • 1997, Mordecai Richler, Barney’s Version, New York: Knopf, “The Second Mrs. Panofsky,” Part 10, p. 213,

     Jesse Jackson cracks a joke about Hymietown and everybody has a fit, but I’ve heard you call them shvartzes, and I’ll bet had your daughter married one you wouldn’t have cracked open a bottle of champagne.

   • 2006, Melissa Fay Greene, The Temple Bombing, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, Chapter 6, p. 139,

     ‘We don’t have enough problems among the Jews, he has to go take on the problems of the shvartze?’

Adjective

shvartze (not comparable)

1. (chiefly US, offensive, ethnic slur) Of sub-Saharan African descent; of or pertaining to people of sub-Saharan African descent; black.
   • 1983, Richard Price, The Breaks, New York: Simon & Schuster, Part 1, p. 98,

     There was a shvartze wedding next door and something else too . . . some anniversary party.

   • 2012, Steve Stern, “The Tale of a Kite” in The Book of Mischief, Minneapolis: Graywolf Fress, p. 9,

     Ordinarily Boss Crump and his entourage […] like to tour the individual shops, receiving the tributes his shvartze valet shleps out to a waiting limousine.