house nigger

English

Etymology

By analogy with slaves that worked predominantly indoors during US slavery who were trained with more skills than basic field hands or plantation niggers.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Noun

house nigger (plural house niggers)

1. (dated, now offensive) A black slave that worked as a domestic as opposed to manual laborer.
   • 2008, Julia L. Mickenberg, Philip Nel, Tales for little rebels: a collection of radical children's literature, page 195:

     If massa was sick, house nigger would come 'round and say, “Massa we sick, ain't we?

2. (derogatory, ethnic slur, idiomatic) A subservient or accultured black person; an Uncle Tom or black race traitor.
   • 2003, John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle‎, page 162:

     "You look like a house nigger."