nigger

• n****r (censored)
• n-word (euphemistic)
• nigga, niggah, nigguh (eye dialect)

Probably immediately from French nègre or Spanish and Portuguese negro (“a black African”); ultimately from Latin niger (“black”), thus a doublet of negro and noir. Compare Danish nigger, Swedish nigger, German Nigger, Dutch nikker. First use appears c. 1577, in the writings of Edward Hellowes (fl. 1574–1601). The expected Modern English pronunciation would be with /iː/; compare neger. The modern pronunciation with /ɪ/ may be due to influence from the Latin etymon (compare the older Southern US pronunciation of negro with /ɪ/), but compare the dialectal American pronunciations of eagle and eager as /ˈɪɡəl/ and /ˈɪɡɚ/.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: nĭgʹər, IPA^(key): /ˈnɪɡə(ɹ)/
• (General American) enPR: nĭgʹər, IPA^(key): /ˈnɪɡɚ/

• Audio (Northern California):

  Duration: 1 second.0:01

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪɡə(ɹ)

nigger (plural niggers)

1. (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar, see usage notes) A black person; a person of black African descent. hypernym ▼quotations ▼

   Hypernyms: see Thesaurus:person of color

   • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XV, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 133:

     It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger—but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither.

   • 1929, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms‎^[3], New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 274:

     “Othello with his occupation gone,” she teased. “Othello was a nigger,” I said.

   • 2004, Hotel Rwanda, spoken by Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte):

     You are not even a nigger, you are an African.

   1. (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar, slang) A person of black African descent who behaves badly or unconventionally (whether the speaker approves or disapproves). quotations ▼
      • 1996, Chris Rock: Bring the Pain‎^[4], Chris Rock (actor):

        There's black people, and there's niggers. And niggers have got to go. Every time black people wanna have a good time, ign'ant-ass niggers fuck it up.

      • 2008, “The N Word”, in Greydon Square (music), The CPT Theorem:

        See, niggers are followers, blacks normally lead.
        Niggers call blacks "whitewash" soon as they on the scene.

      • 2010 April 13, Kitty Kelley, quoting an unnamed town resident, Oprah: A Biography, New York, N.Y.: Crown, →ISBN, →OL, page 193:

        Blacks stayed at home during the civil rights march. Niggers are the ones that marched.

      • 2021, Dave Chapelle, The Closer:

        ...and as I was leaving it occurred to me. "Hey, hey, Renee, quick question[...] Why is it that I can say the word ‘nigger’ with impunity but I can't say the word ‘faggot’?" And she said, "Because, David, you are not gay." I said, "Well, Renee... I'm not a nigger either."

2. (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar, see usage notes) A member of any typically dark-skinned people (now especially in combinations like prairie nigger or sand nigger). quotations ▼
   • 1880 June 19, Henry Kendall, “My Piccaninny”, in The Australian Town and Country Journal, page 28, column 4:

     He never lost his appetite -
     He bigger grew and bigger;
     And proved, with every inch of height,
     A nigger is a nigger.

   • 1902, George Stoddart Whitmore, The Last Maori War in New Zealand..., page vi:

     Many of the rank and file had no better conception of the proud and sensitive Maori than was implied in the degrading ‘nigger’ theory, invariably applied by the unthinking Briton to all coloured races.

   • 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     "The public have taken no interest in the matter up to now, but this letter of Challenger's in the Times will make them wake up, I'm thinking." "And this about Sumatra?" "Well, it's a long cry from a blurred line in a spectrum to a sick nigger in Sumatra. And yet the chiel has shown us once before that he knows what he's talking about."

   • 1985, Cormac McCarthy, “Chapter 10”, in blood Meridian, Random House, →ISBN, →OCLC:

     [H]e commenced to kill Indians. We needed no second invitation. God it was a butchery. At the first fire we killed a round dozen and we did not let up. Before the last poor nigger reached the bottom of the slope there was fifty-eight of them lay slaughtered among the gravels. They just slid down the slope like chaff down a hopper, some turned this way, some that, and they made a chain about the base of the mountain

     [This quote is spoken by a scalphunter in c. 1850.]

   • 1988, James H. Schlender, quotee, “Written Testimony of James H. Schlender, Executive Administrator, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, May 18, 1988”, in Anti-Indian Violence: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, second session, May 4 and 18, 1988‎^[5], Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published 1989, →OCLC, page 197:

     At Crescent Lake in Oneida County, Hubert Locke, who is black and serves as the Dean of the University of Washington's School of Public Affairs, was confronted with words to the effect of, "Now the Commission has a nigger working for them" and "I guess there are two kinds of niggers—red niggers and black niggers"[...] These blatant manifestations of racism directed toward Mr. Locke serve to illustrate the racist attitudes experienced daily by tribal members.

3. (African-American Vernacular) A friend, particularly a fellow black person (often as an informal term of address). quotations ▼
   • 1997, McKinley Lee, Chosen by Fate: My Life inside Death Row Records, →ISBN:

     “Snoop Dog!” one of them yelled. “That’s my nigga from Long Beach, man.”

   • 2001 Autumn-Winter, Awad Ibrahim, quoting ‘Sam’, “Hey, whadap homeboy?”, in Taboo‎^[6], page 94:

     I wonna say whassup to all my Niggers, you know, peace and one love.

   • 2002 January 13, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, “"Loaded Language", a review of Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy”, in Washington Post, page BW06:

     I had overheard him greet a buddy who called him on the phone with "Yo, nigger, what's up?"

4. (figurative, especially African-American Vernacular, otherwise offensive) A person of any kind (particularly as a term of abuse). quotations ▼
   • 2021, Dave Chapelle, The Closer:

     People be surprised. I have friends who're all kinds a letters. Everybody loves me an' I love everybody. I got friends who are Ls, I got friends who are Bs, and I got friends who are Gs. But the Ts hate my fucking guts. And I don't blame 'em! It's not their fault. It's mine. I can't stop tellin' jokes about these niggas.

5. (especially in comparisons, now offensive) A member of a group that is oppressed or marginalized in the manner of black people. quotations ▼
   • 1979 April 14, Jil Clark (quoting Mel King), "King Axes Women's Commission", in Gay Community News, page 1:

     The governor made it into office by campaigning against the niggers. And people should understand who the niggers are. It's the elderly one week. Then it's those on public assistance. Now he sees women as niggers, and he's trying to do them in.

   • c. 1972 Ron Dellums, speech quoted in e.g. 2012, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (Simon and Schuster, →ISBN), page 58:

     It's time for somebody to lead all of America's Niggers," he said at the Capitol Hill press conference when Shirley Chisholm announced she was running for president, "and by this I mean the Young, the Black, the Brown, the Women, the Poor—all the people who feel left out of the political process. If we can put the Nigger Vote together, we can bring about some real change in this country."

   • 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" (song)
6. (now offensive) Any of various dark animals:
   1. (now offensive) Any member of species Girella tricuspidata (luderick).
   2. (now offensive, dated) A dark brown nymphalid butterfly, Orsotriaena medus, of south Asia, southeast Asia, and Australia. quotations ▼
      • 1932, Gustavus Athol Waterhouse, What Butterfly is That?: A Guide to the Butterflies of Australia, page 112:

        Nigger (Male) Orsotriaena medus moira Waterhouse and Lyell. 1914.

      • 2010, Khew Sin Khoon, A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Singapore, page 69:

        The Nigger is a common butterfly in Singapore and can be found in the company of bush browns.

   3. (UK, Cornwall, fishing, archaic) A kind of sea cucumber, Holothuria forskali, the cotton-spinner.
   4. (archaic) The larva of the turnip sawfly, an agricultural pest. quotations ▼
      • 1873, Nature, volume 7, page 448:

        To this group belongs the nigger, or black caterpillar of the turnip, which is often in sufficient numbers to do much mischief.

7. (archaic, electrical) 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. quotations ▼
   • 1892, Western Electrician, volume 11, page 72:

     Now to locate the portion of the machine which contains the "nigger."

8. (archaic) 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. quotations ▼
   • 1918, Leonard L. Shertzer, How to Build and Operate a Sawmill, page 20:

     A sawyer will come along and be touted and recommended as the best in the country when his chief qualifications will be his ability to jerk the carriage back and forth in a hurry without striking the bumper or to turn the log with the nigger […]

   • [1919, Laura Fletcher Hodges, Early Indianapolis, page 16:

     The word “nigger” means to the backwoodsman a small log placed when blazing, across large logs to fire them; by tending the fire so made, large logs are divided more quickly than by an ax—consequently “a nigger in a woodpile” means something which destroys it and not, as I had supposed, our African brother.]

9. (archaic, US) 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. quotations ▼
   • 1983, Goldenseal, volume 9, page 20:

     Well, it's a big heavy line, and you operate the nigger — capstan it's also called — by steam. You wrap your line around that and keep taking in the slack, and that draws up them things.

10. (film, dated) A black screen used in conjunction with the camera to block light or produce special lighting effects. quotations ▼
    • 1961, Peter Snow, Electronic Flashlight Photography, page 114:

      Care should be taken to check visually from the position occupied by the subject and from the camera also, to ascertain that the nigger is positioned correctly and does not obstruct the picture area.

• The word "nigger" is considered to be extremely offensive and one of the most taboo words in the English language. In a 2007 study by Kristy Beers Fägersten, undergraduates at the University of Florida were asked to rate 12 pejorative English words on a scale of 1 ('Not Offensive') to 10 ('Very Offensive'). Participants rated nigger the most offensive, nearly 2 points higher than the second-most offensive word, cunt.^[1] New Zealand's Broadcasting Standards Authority conducted a study in 2010 and again in 2013 which found that nigger was the second-most offensive word in New Zealand (after cunt), offending 66% and 65% of those surveyed respectively,^[2][3] and a similar study by several British broadcasting organizations found that "nigger" offended 68% of Britons and was the fifth most offensive word in the UK (after cunt, motherfucker, fuck, and wanker).^[4]
• There have been efforts by those of African descent to reclaim the word (especially in the form nigga), but these efforts are controversial and some people do not believe it is able to be reclaimed due to its fraught history and continued derogatory usage.^[5] Regardless, usage by non-blacks is still almost invariably considered highly racist and offensive.
• "Nigger" has derogatory connotations, suggesting not only white racism and negatively-perceived darkness of skin but also unfavorable attributes such as a lack of intelligence, chronic unemployment, use of government welfare, a propensity toward drug use and criminal behavior, etc.^[6] It is furthermore associated with the enslavement and subordinate social status of Africans and African Americans.
• Historically, "nigger" was not necessarily always used in a specifically derogatory sense, though its use instead of black or Negro (historically a neutral term) often reflected subconscious negative attitudes towards African-Americans involving "keeping the black man in his place".^[7]
• To blunt its force, the word is commonly referred to as the "n-word" and may be censored in direct quotations.
• Not to be confused with the etymologically unrelated but similar-sounding niggard (“miser”).

• (derogatory term for black person): blackie, bootlip, coon, darkie, groid, jigaboo, jogger, jungle bunny, kaffir, moon cricket, nig-nog, nigga, porch monkey, Sambo, shitskin, smoked Irishman, spade, spearchucker, spook, tar baby, wog
• (friend): homie, nigga

• negro, Negro
• nigra, Nigra
• whigga, whigger, wigga, wigger

• Sranan Tongo: nengre
  • Aukan: nengee
  • Saramaccan: në́ngë

nigger (third-person singular simple present niggers, present participle niggering, simple past and past participle niggered)

1. (transitive, dated) 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. quotations ▼
   • 1844, J. W. Dunbar Moodie, “The Ould Dhragoon; or, a visit to the beaver meadow”, in Literary garland, volume 2, Lovell & Gibson, page 360:

     […] he resorted to the practice of “niggering,” as it is called: which is simply 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.

   • 1914, Indiana State Teachers Association, Readings in Indiana history, Indiana University, History Section, page 171:

     The operation was this: they placed smaller logs and dry rubbish across the log and applied fire to them; this was called “niggering”.

   • 1956, Joseph Kirkland, Zury: the meanest man in Spring County: a novel of western life, University of Illinois Press, page 40:

     All day long his axe rang through the frosty air as he felled saplings for the fence and stripped them from fuel for the “niggering” fires.

   • 1980, Elaine Hedges, William Hedges, Land and imagination: the rural dream in America, Hayden Book Co., page 69:

     This means subduing and taming the forest itself—the central drama of The Fields—performing the hard labor of hacking the trees and “niggering” and burning the butts in order to get to the rich black soil underneath.

2. (transitive, dated) To exhaust (soil) by cropping it year by year without manure.
3. (intransitive, now offensive) To perform in blackface. quotations ▼
   • 1976, Cake and Cockhorse, volume 7, page 220:

     There is a general agreement that niggering took over from mummering to keep up the old custom.

4. (intransitive, offensive) To behave as a stereotypical black person. quotations ▼
   • 1989, Reynolds Price, The surface of earth, Ballantine Books, page 120:

     His father said, “Niggering, I was niggering about. You knew that surely.”

   • 2007, George Hovis, Vale of Humility: Plain Folk in Contemporary North Carolina Fiction, Univ of South Carolina Press, page 86:

     Forrest’s rediscovery of his father coincides with his discovery that old Robinson’s “niggering around” produced at least one child of mixed race.

   • 2008, Joe Ambrose, Gimme Danger: The Story Of Iggy Pop, Music Sales Group:

     I mean he was niggering. Niggering out, grabbing at my leg and microphone cord. I said, ‘Stop that you damn nigger!’ and that takes guts!

5. (uncommon, transitive, offensive) To treat as inferior. quotations ▼
   • 1997 January 18, Joe Frisch, “Anglo-US relations under a Blair Government”, in uk.org.mensa‎^[7] (Usenet):

     The gated community is a powerful tool in the systematic and sustained niggering of local 3rd-world communities - namely, in the book, the Hispanic (mostly wetbacK^[sic]) community

   • 1999 December 3, Jeff Welch, “Who is McGuyver and why was he "niggered?”, in seattle.general, December 3‎^[8] (Usenet):

     > He is on TV saying that he was "abused" by the police and treated like a nigger.

   • 2003 July 16, “Mob Attacks Palestinian Pollsters Who Told The Truth”, in soc.retirement (Usenet):

     Why would many Paletinians^[sic] want to return to a land where they would be "niggered" for the benefit of the Israelis as the present Palestinian population is

• Gering, Ginger, erging, ginger

Borrowed from English nigger.

• IPA^(key): [ˈneɡ̊ʌ]

nigger c (singular definite niggeren, plural indefinite niggere)

1. (vulgar, derogatory, offensive, rare) nigger; a dark-skinned person, especially a person of, or primarily of, Negro descent

• (dark-skinned, derogatory): abekat
• (dark-skinned, now offensive): neger
• (dark-skinned, neutral): sort, farvet, afrikaner

From English nigger.

nigger m (definite singular niggeren, indefinite plural niggere, definite plural niggerne)

1. (vulgar, offensive) nigger

• neger
• svarting

• “nigger” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /¹nɪɡːər/

From English nigger, a distortion of neger, from French nègre or Spanish and Portuguese negro. Doublet of neger (“black person”).

nigger m (definite singular niggeren, indefinite plural niggerar, definite plural niggerane)

1. (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar) nigger

• neger

• svarting

From nigra (“to do fine work, to peck; to stretch”), a variant of nigla.

nigger (neuter niggert, definite singular and plural nigre, comparative nigrare, indefinite superlative nigrast, definite superlative nigraste)

1. economical, thrifty synonyms ▲

   Synonyms: nigren, sparsam

• “nigger”, in Norsk Ordbok: ordbok over det norske folkemålet og det nynorske skriftmålet, Oslo: Samlaget, 1950-2016
• “nigger” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Attested since 1888 according to Svenska Akademiens ordbok. From English nigger.

• IPA^(key): /ˈnɪɡːer/

nigger c

1. (vulgar, offensive, dated) nigger, a variant of neger
2. (dated, games) Synonym of ruta (“foursquare”).

• blatte
• neger
• svarting
• svartskalle

• regnig, riggen