| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| nigger |
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| SYLLABICATION: | nig·ger |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  n g  r |
| NOUN: | Offensive Slang 1a. Used as a disparaging term for a Black person: “You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger” (James Baldwin). b. Used as a disparaging term for a member of any dark-skinned people. 2. Used as a disparaging term for a member of any socially, economically, or politically deprived group of people: “Gun owners are the new niggers . . . of society” (John Aquilino). | | ETYMOLOGY: | Alteration of dialectal neger, black person, from French nègre, from Spanish negro. See Negro.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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