Definitions For Nigger

Verb

{{en-verb}} (transitive, dated) To clear land by laying light pieces of round timber across the trunks of the trees and setting fire to them at the point of contact, by which means the trees are slowly burned through. (transitive, dated) To exhaust (soil) by cropping it year by year without manure. (intransitive, now, _, offensive) To perform in blackface. (intransitive, offensive) To behave as a stereotypical black person. (uncommon, transitive, offensive) To treat as inferior.

Noun

(offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar, see nigger#usage notes, usage notes) A black person; a person of black african descent. : {{hyper, en, Thesaurus:person of color}} (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar, slang) A person of black African descent who behaves badly or unconventionally {{q, whether the speaker approves or disapproves}}. {{quote-av, en, year=1996, actor=w:Chris Rock, title=Chris Rock: Bring the Pain, url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200529/, passage=There's black people, and there's niggers. And niggers have got to go. Every time black people wanna have a good time, ign'ant-ass niggers fuck it up.}} {{quote-song, en, year=2008, title=The N Word, album=The CPT Theorem, composer=w:Greydon Square, passage=See, niggers are followers, blacks normally lead.
Niggers call blacks "whitewash" soon as they on the scene.}} {{quote-book, en, author=w:Kitty Kelley, quotee=an unnamed town resident, title=Oprah: A Biography, location=New York, N.Y., publisher=Crown, date=13 April 2010, isbn=9780307394866, ol=24087304M, page=193, pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=CdvXLjqAcccC&pg=PA193, passage=Blacks stayed at home during the civil rights march. Niggers are the ones that marched.}} {{quote-text, en, year=2021, author=w:Dave Chapelle, title={{w, The Closer (2021 film), The Closer}} (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar, see nigger#usage notes, usage notes) A member of any typically dark-skinned people {{q, now especially in combinations like prairie nigger or sand nigger}}. (AAVE) A friend, particularly a fellow black person {{q, often as an informal term of address}}. (figurative, especially, AAVE, otherwise, offensive) A person of any kind (particularly as a term of abuse). (especially in comparisons, now, offensive) A member of a group that is oppressed or marginalized in the manner of black people. (now, offensive) Any of various dark animals: (now, offensive) Any member of species Girella tricuspidata (luderick). (now, offensive, dated) A dark brown nymphalid butterfly, Orsotriaena medus, of south Asia, southeast Asia, and Australia. {{quote-book, en, year=1932, author=Gustavus Athol Waterhouse, title=What Butterfly is That?: A Guide to the Butterflies of Australia, page=112, passage=Nigger (Male) Orsotriaena medus moira Waterhouse and Lyell. 1914.}} {{quote-book, en, year=2010, author=Khew Sin Khoon, title=A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Singapore, page=69, passage=The Nigger is a common butterfly in Singapore and can be found in the company of bush browns.}} (UK, Cornwall, fishing, archaic) A kind of sea cucumber, Holothuria forskali, the cotton-spinner. (archaic) The larva of the turnip sawfly, an agricultural pest. {{quote-journal, en, year=1873, journal=Nature, volume=7, page=448, passage=To this group belongs the nigger, or black caterpillar of the turnip, which is often in sufficient numbers to do much mischief.}} (archaic, electrical) An impurity in the covering of an electrical conductor which serves to make a partial short circuit, and thus becomes sufficiently heated to burn and destroy the insulation. (archaic) A strong iron-bound timber with sharp tooth, teeth or spikes protruding from its front face, forming part of the machinery of a sawmill, and used in canting logs, etc. (archaic, US) A steam-capstan on some mississippi river boats, used to haul the boat over bars and snags by a rope fastened to a tree on the bank. (film, dated) A black screen used in conjunction with the camera to block light or produce special lighting effects.

Usage notes

The word "nigger" is considered to be extremely offensive and one of the most taboo words in the English language. In a 2007 study by Kristy Beers Fägersten, undergraduates at the University of Florida were asked to rate 12 pejorative English words on a scale of 1 ('Not Offensive') to 10 ('Very Offensive'). Participants rated nigger the most offensive, nearly 2 points higher than the second-most offensive word, cunt.{{cite-journal, author=Kristy Beers Fägersten, title=A sociolinguistic analysis of swear word offensiveness, url=https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-sociolinguistic-analysis-of-swear-word-Fägersten/36d7919d6bacad334afa455b01e9b2877efb9dc7, journal=Saarland Working Papers in Linguistics (SWPL), location=Högskolan Dalarna (Dalarna University), Sweden, year=2007, pages=14-37}} New Zealand's {{w, Broadcasting Standards Authority}} conducted a study in 2010 and again in 2013 which found that nigger was the second-most offensive word in New Zealand (after cunt), offending 66% and 65% of those surveyed respectively, and a similar study by several British broadcasting organizations found that "nigger" offended 68% of Britons and was the fifth most offensive word in the UK (after cunt, motherfucker, fuck, and wanker). There have been efforts by those of African descent to reclaim the word (especially in the form nigga), but these efforts are controversial and some people do not believe it is able to be reclaimed due to its fraught history and continued derogatory usage.{{cite-journal, author=Rachel Higson, title=Considering the N-Word: To Reject or Reclaim?, url=https://www.prindlepost.org/2017/09/considering-n-word-reject-reclaim/, journal=The Prindle Post, location=DePauw, Indiana, publisher=The Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University, date=September 28, 2017, accessdate=12 February 2020, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126125007/https://www.prindlepost.org/2017/09/considering-n-word-reject-reclaim/, archivedate=26 November 2020}} Regardless, usage by non-blacks is still almost invariably considered highly racist and offensive. "Nigger" has derogatory connotations, suggesting not only white racism and negatively-perceived darkness of skin but also unfavorable attributes such as a lack of intelligence, chronic unemployment, use of government welfare, a propensity toward drug use and criminal behavior, etc.{{pedia, Stereotypes of African Americans}} It is furthermore associated with the enslavement and subordinate social status of Africans and African Americans. Historically, "nigger" was not necessarily always used in a specifically derogatory sense, though its use instead of black or Negro (historically a neutral term) often reflected subconscious negative attitudes towards African-Americans involving "keeping the black man in his place".{{R:Stanley Speech of East Texas, I, 1, 7}} To blunt its force, the word is commonly referred to as the "n-word" and may be censored in direct quotations. Not to be confused with the etymologically unrelated but similar-sounding niggard, t=miser.

Synonyms

derogatory term for black person blackie, bootlip, coon, darkie, groid, jigaboo, jogger, jungle bunny, kaffir, moon cricket, nig-nog, nigga, porch monkey, Sambo, shitskin, smoked Irishman, spade, spearchucker, spook, tar baby, wog friend homie, nigga

Derived terms

{{col4, en

Related terms

negro, Negro nigra, Nigra whigga, whigger, wigga, wigger

Descendants

{{desc, srn, nengre}} {{desc, djk, nengee}} {{desc, srm, në́ngë}}

Translations

Albanian: zezak Arabic: زِنْجِيّ, m, زَنْجِيّ, m, أَسْوَد, m, عَبْد, m Armenian: նեգր Azerbaijani: zənci Bulgarian: негър, мангал Chinese: : Cantonese: 黑鬼 (hak1 gwai2, haak1 gwai2) : Hokkien: 烏鬼 (o͘-kúi), 烏張飛 (o͘-tiuⁿ-hui) : Mandarin: 黑鬼, tr=hēiguǐ, 尼哥, tr=nígē Czech: negr, m Danish: nigger, c, abekat, c Dutch: nikker, m, neger, m, roetmop, m Esperanto: nigrulaĉo, nigrulaĉino {{q, female}} Estonian: neeger {{q, increasingly offensive}}, pigi {{q, offensive}} Finnish: neekeri, nekru, lakupekka, lakupetteri, laku French: nègre, m, négresse, f, négro, m, f, bougnoule, m, f Georgian: ზანგი German: Neger, m, Negerin, f, Nigger, m, Niggerin, f, Bimbo, m, Kaffer, m, Kafferin, f, Mohr, m {{q, dated}}, Mohrin, f {{q, dated}} Greek: αράπης, m, αραπίνα, f Hawaiian: nika Hebrew: כושון (kushon), כושי, m, tr=kúshi, alt=כושי \ כּוּשִׁי Hungarian: néger {{q, generally neutral}}, feka Icelandic: negri, m Ido: nigracho Italian: negro, m, negra, f {{q, female}} Japanese: 黒んぼ, tr=kuronbo, 黒奴 (kokudo), ニガー (nigā) Korean: 검둥이, 깜둥이 Macedonian: црнец, m Norwegian: : Norwegian Bokmål: svarting, m, sotrør, n : Norwegian Nynorsk: svarting, m Persian: سیاه سوخته, tr=siyâh suxte, غلام سیاه (ğolâm-siyâh), کاکا سیاه (kâkâ-siyâh) Polish: czarnuch, m-pr, bambus, m-pr, asfalt, m-pr Portuguese: preto, m, macaco, m {{qualifier, Brazil}} Romanian: negrotei, m, cioară, f Russian: негрито́с, m, негрито́ска, f, чернома́зый, m, чернома́зая, f, ни́ггер, m, чёрный, m (note: негр, m and негритя́нка, f are neutral terms), {{qualifier, offensive}} черножо́пый, m Slovak: neger, m Spanish: negro, m, negra, f, negrata, m, f, mayate, m {{q, Chicano slang}}, negrillo, m, negrilla, f, negrito, m, negrita, f, negrote, m, negraso, m, negro de mierda, mono, m, mona, f, gorila, m Swedish: neger, c, nigger, c, svarting, c Turkish: zenci, gündüz feneri {{qualifier, slang}} Urdu: حبشی, m (habśī) {{qualifier, offensive if intended otherwise 'Male Ethiopian/Abyssian'}}, حبشن, f (habśan) {{qualifier, offensive if intended otherwise 'Female Ethiopian/Abyssinian'}}, کالا, m (kālā) {{qualifier, literally 'black (male)'}}, کالی (kālī) {{qualifier, literally 'black (female)'}} Yiddish: שוואַרצער, m, שוואַרצע, f

Alternative forms

{{alt, en, n****r, , censored}} {{alt, en, n-word, , euphemistic}} {{alt, en, nigga, niggah, nigguh, , eye dialect}}

Etymology

Probably immediately from {{bor, en, fr, nègre}} or {{der, en, es, -}} and {{der, en, pt, negro, , a black African}}; ultimately from {{der, en, la, niger, , black}}, thus a {{doublet, en, negro, noir, nocap=1}}. Compare {{cog, da, nigger}}, {{cog, sv, nigger}}, {{cog, de, Nigger}}, {{cog, nl, nikker}}. First use appears c. 1577, in the writings of Edward Hellowes (fl. 1574–1601). The expected Modern English pronunciation would be with {{IPAchar, /iː/}}; compare neger. The modern pronunciation with {{IPAchar, /ɪ/}} may be due to influence from the Latin {{glossary, etymon}} (compare the older Southern US pronunciation of negro with {{IPAchar, /ɪ/}}), but compare the dialectal American pronunciations of eagle and eager as {{IPAchar, /ˈɪɡəl/}} and {{IPAchar, /ˈɪɡɚ/}}.

Anagrams

Gering, Ginger, erging, ginger {{topics, en, Satyrine butterflies, Sea cucumbers, Sawflies and wood wasps, Kyphosid fish}}