white man
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Noun edit
- A man of northern European descent or having that appearance.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:white person
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 198:
- Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man, - I was told the chief's son, - in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man - and of course it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades.
- White people collectively; white culture.
- The arrival of the white man brought new things and new ideas, but also new wars and new diseases.
- 1927, A. M. Hocart, Are Savages Custom-Bound?, in Man, vol. 27
- Savages are commonly supposed to be the slaves of custom to a far greater degree than the White Man, who by contrast appears as the child of reason.
- 1933, G. St. J. Orde Browne, British Justice and the African, in the Journal of the Royal African Society, vol. 32, no. 127
- […] very little attempt seems to have been made so far to deal with the whole problem of the African in contact with white man’s law, […]
- 1992, Bruce Shaw, When the Dust Come in Between, page 149:
- Well the Aboriginals are trying to step forward a little but in a lot of ways the white man is still keeping them down, in a politeful sort of way.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see white, man.
- 1883, Henry Richter, Chess Simplified!, page 4:
- The white men are always put on that side of the board which commences by row 1, and the black men are placed opposite.
- 1908, The Chess Amateur, volume 2, page 39:
- We will suppose that you are the player of the white men, and that your opponent[,] the player of the black men[,] is sitting opposite to you, ready for battle.
Coordinate terms edit
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
Caucasian — see Caucasian