Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person having white ancestors except for one black great-grandparent. Used especially as a classification under certain European colonial legal systems and now considered offensive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The offspring of a quadroon and a white person; a person having one eighth negro blood.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The offspring of a quadroon and a white person; a mestee.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun someone having one-eighth black ancestry

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an offspring of a quadroon and a white parent; a person who is one-eighth black

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[octo– + (quad)roon.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From octo- ("eight") + -roon, alteration of ending of cuarterón ("quadroon")

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Examples

  • One house in particular was called the octoroon house.

    Twice Sold, Twice Ransomed Autobiography of Mr. and Mrs. L. P. Ray 1924

  • The octoroon was a large man, of about the size of the third lieutenant, and he could have made a good deal of mischief if he had been so disposed.

    Stand By The Union Oliver Optic 1859

  • President, and Declaration of Independence author as his slave, concubine, mother of his unacknowledged illegitimate "octoroon" children, etc.

    Who Speaks for Sally Hemings? Anxious Black Woman 2008

  • I speculate that the word used in that other sense is a typical Oz contraction, of "octoroon" (cf. "ocky", also in AND, for "octopus"), ignorantly and locally applied to East Asiatics instead of "A person of one-eighth Aboriginal descent" (AND).

    languagehat.com: TRAI(T). 2005

  • She tells of an "octoroon" who "passed" as white, only to be killed by her husband when found out.

    A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy 2009

  • Slide 12: 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson • Homer Plessy (an "octoroon" could not ride in white railway car) • Separate but equal • One drop rule of hypodescent • Ratification of spatial segregation  legal enforcement of Jim Crow laws 12

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2008

  • Slide 12: 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson • Homer Plessy (an "octoroon" could not ride in white railway car) • Separate but equal • One drop rule of hypodescent • Ratification of spatial segregation  legal enforcement of Jim Crow laws 12

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2008

  • Slide 12: 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson • Homer Plessy (an "octoroon" could not ride in white railway car) • Separate but equal • One drop rule of hypodescent • Ratification of spatial segregation  legal enforcement of Jim Crow laws 12

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2008

  • Slide 12: 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson • Homer Plessy (an "octoroon" could not ride in white railway car) • Separate but equal • One drop rule of hypodescent • Ratification of spatial segregation  legal enforcement of Jim Crow laws 12

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2008

  • Video: analysis from the cake wrecks blog. tags: tales of adventure and octoroon frosting

    today is the first day of kwanzaa 2009

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