mean white

English

Noun

mean white (plural mean whites)

  1. (US, obsolete, ethnic slur, used by black slaves) Synonym of poor white trash (“a white person of low social status”).
    • 2019, William L. Andrews, Slavery and Class in the American South, page 186:
      A mean white would be acutely reminded of his own shabby status upon encountering a slave like Northup, […]

References

  • John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
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