nigger

Meanings

Noun

• A black person; a person of black African descent.
• A friend. See: nigga.
• A term of abuse, applied to someone of any race, who is seen as lazy, unmotivated, unambitious, self-serving, unproductive, seeking a handout, or willingly dependent on the generosity and charity of others; a mooch.
• Any of various dark animals:
• 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.
• A strong iron-bound timber with sharp teeth or spikes protruding from its front face, forming part of the machinery of a sawmill, and used in canting logs, etc.
• 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.
• A black screen used in conjunction with the camera to block light or produce special lighting effects.

Verb

• 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.
• To exhaust (soil) by cropping it year by year without manure.
• To perform in blackface.
• To behave as a stereotypical black person.
• To treat as inferior.

Related

Similar words

• blackie, nigga, coon, darkie, gator bait, groid, jigaboo, jungle bunny, kaffir, macaca, nig-nog, porch monkey, sambo, shitskin, spade, spearchucker, spook, tar baby, wog
• homie, nigga

Origin

• Probably immediately from French nègre or Spanish and Portuguese negro ("a black African"); ultimately from and influenced by Latin niger ("black"). Compare Danish nigger, Swedish nigger, German Nigger, Dutch nikker. negro, and noir.