"house nigger" meaning in English

See house nigger in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

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 Categories (topical): People, Slaves
    Sense id: en-house_nigger-en-noun-fPFcPyTt Disambiguation of People: 50 50 Disambiguation of Slaves: 61 39 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 60 40 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 59 41 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 62 38
  2. (derogatory, ethnic slur, idiomatic) A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or black race traitor. Tags: derogatory, ethnic, idiomatic, slur Categories (topical): People, Racism
    Sense id: en-house_nigger-en-noun-G6bZsoG4 Disambiguation of People: 50 50 Disambiguation of Racism: 7 93 Categories (other): English ethnic slurs

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": "60 40",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "59 41",
          "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": "50 50",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "61 39",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Slaves",
          "orig": "en:Slaves",
          "parents": [
            "Servants",
            "Slavery",
            "Occupations",
            "Society",
            "Work",
            "People",
            "All topics",
            "Human activity",
            "Human",
            "Fundamental",
            "Human behaviour"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "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": [
            "Ethnic slurs",
            "Offensive terms",
            "Terms by usage"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "7 93",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Racism",
          "orig": "en:Racism",
          "parents": [
            "Forms of discrimination",
            "Discrimination",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "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": [
        {
          "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": [
        {
          "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 English (2.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.