"house nigger" meaning in All languages combined

See house nigger on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: en-au-house nigger.ogg Forms: house niggers [plural]
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. Head templates: {{en-noun}} house nigger (plural house niggers)
  1. (dated, now offensive) A black slave that worked as a domestic as opposed to manual laborer. Tags: dated, offensive
    Sense id: en-house_nigger-en-noun-fPFcPyTt Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, People, Slaves Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 59 41 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 60 40 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 62 38 Disambiguation of People: 100 0 Disambiguation of Slaves: 69 31
  2. (derogatory, ethnic slur, idiomatic) A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or black race traitor. Tags: derogatory, ethnic, idiomatic, slur
    Sense id: en-house_nigger-en-noun-G6bZsoG4 Categories (other): English ethnic slurs, Racism Disambiguation of Racism: 30 70

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_text": "By analogy with slaves that worked predominantly indoors during US slavery who were trained with more skills than basic field hands or plantation niggers.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "house niggers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "house nigger (plural house niggers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "59 41",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "60 40",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "62 38",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "100 0",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "69 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Slaves",
          "orig": "en:Slaves",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              19,
              31
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2008, Julia L. Mickenberg, Philip Nel, Tales for little rebels: a collection of radical children's literature, page 195:",
          "text": "If massa was sick, house nigger would come 'round and say, “Massa we sick, ain't we?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A black slave that worked as a domestic as opposed to manual laborer."
      ],
      "id": "en-house_nigger-en-noun-fPFcPyTt",
      "links": [
        [
          "domestic",
          "domestic"
        ],
        [
          "manual labor",
          "manual labor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated, now offensive) A black slave that worked as a domestic as opposed to manual laborer."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "offensive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English ethnic slurs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "30 70",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Racism",
          "orig": "en:Racism",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              17,
              29
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2003, John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle, page 162:",
          "text": "\"You look like a house nigger.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or black race traitor."
      ],
      "id": "en-house_nigger-en-noun-G6bZsoG4",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "ethnic",
          "ethnic"
        ],
        [
          "slur",
          "slur"
        ],
        [
          "subservient",
          "subservient"
        ],
        [
          "accultured",
          "accultured"
        ],
        [
          "Uncle Tom",
          "Uncle Tom"
        ],
        [
          "race traitor",
          "race traitor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory, ethnic slur, idiomatic) A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or black race traitor."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "ethnic",
        "idiomatic",
        "slur"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-house nigger.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f9/En-au-house_nigger.ogg/En-au-house_nigger.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/En-au-house_nigger.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "house nigger"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:People",
    "en:Racism",
    "en:Slaves"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "By analogy with slaves that worked predominantly indoors during US slavery who were trained with more skills than basic field hands or plantation niggers.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "house niggers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "house nigger (plural house niggers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English dated terms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              19,
              31
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2008, Julia L. Mickenberg, Philip Nel, Tales for little rebels: a collection of radical children's literature, page 195:",
          "text": "If massa was sick, house nigger would come 'round and say, “Massa we sick, ain't we?",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A black slave that worked as a domestic as opposed to manual laborer."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "domestic",
          "domestic"
        ],
        [
          "manual labor",
          "manual labor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated, now offensive) A black slave that worked as a domestic as opposed to manual laborer."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "offensive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English ethnic slurs",
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              17,
              29
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2003, John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle, page 162:",
          "text": "\"You look like a house nigger.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or black race traitor."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "ethnic",
          "ethnic"
        ],
        [
          "slur",
          "slur"
        ],
        [
          "subservient",
          "subservient"
        ],
        [
          "accultured",
          "accultured"
        ],
        [
          "Uncle Tom",
          "Uncle Tom"
        ],
        [
          "race traitor",
          "race traitor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory, ethnic slur, idiomatic) A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or black race traitor."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "ethnic",
        "idiomatic",
        "slur"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-house nigger.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f9/En-au-house_nigger.ogg/En-au-house_nigger.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/En-au-house_nigger.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "house nigger"
}

Download raw JSONL data for house nigger meaning in All languages combined (2.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-01 using wiktextract (c3cc510 and 1d3fdbf). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.