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Negro

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negro¹

  • /ˈniɡɹoʊ/ US
  • /ˈnɪɡɹoʊ/ obsolete
  • /ˈnɪɡɹə/ Southern US, dated
  • /ˈniːɡɹəʊ/ UK

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Spanish and Portuguese negro (“black”), from Latin nigrum (“shiny black”), of uncertain origin, but possibly from Proto-Indo-European *negʷ- (“bare; night”). Doublet of noir. Compare nigrescence.

adjective

  1. dated, not comparable, offensive Relating to a black ethnicity. Recently, on a wintry Sunday, some 2,500 white Chicago area residents embarked on a strange safari across the city, determined to do what most of them had never done before—visit a Negro home. Eager to purge themselves of ignorance about the city's "other half," they were participants in Interracial
  2. dated, not comparable, offensive Black or dark brown in color.

noun negroes · negros

  1. dated, offensive A person of black African ancestry. The negroes believe that its presence has a sanitary effect upon their cattle […]
  2. archaic A slave, especially one of African ancestry. We don't want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involved the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.

Similar: blackamoor, black, Black, African-American

Negro²

  • /ˈniːɡɹəʊ/ UK
  • /ˈniːɡɹoʊ/ US
  • /ˈnɪɡɹə/ Southern US, dated

noun Negroes · Negros

  1. dated, offensive, usually Alternative letter-case form of negro.negro The rickets were sold to sex-starved who had weird ideas about Negro women.

adjective

  1. in compounds, not comparable Pertaining to the panethnic or ethnolinguistic groups associated with the proposed Negro-African superphylum. The Negro-African language theory was proposed.

proper noun

  1. A surname.

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