Nigger

Quick meaning: Nigger is a noun meaning (African-American Vernacular) A friend, particularly a fellow black person (often as an informal term of address).

Meaning

(African-American Vernacular) A friend, particularly a fellow black person (often as an informal term of address).

More Meanings

1. (figurative, especially African-American Vernacular, otherwise offensive) A person of any kind (particularly as a term of abuse).
2. (especially in comparisons, now offensive) A member of a group that is oppressed or marginalized in the manner of black people.
3. (now offensive) Any of various dark animals:
4. (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar, see usage notes) A black person; a person of black African descent.
5. (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).
6. (archaic, electricity) 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.
7. (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.

Example Sentences

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

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

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

In a particularly sad portion of the Wells Report, Jonathan Martin laments being derided as a nigger to his face by Richie Incognito.

Word Forms

• niggers
• nigga
• niggah
• nigguh
• niggering
• niggered

Synonyms for nigger

Depending on context, synonyms include blackie, bootlip, brillo pad, coon, darkie, groid.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include cracker, honky, redneck, whitey, backwater, aisle.

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