German

Noun

Nigger m ‎(genitive Niggers, plural Nigger)

1. nigger

Declension

Derived terms

• Niggerjazz

English

Alternative forms

• nigga
• niggah (eye dialect)
• nigguh (eye dialect)

Noun

nigger ‎(plural niggers)

1. (now offensive, ethnic slur, now vulgar, see usage notes) A dark-skinned person, especially a person of, or primarily of, Negro descent; a black person.
   • 1884, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chapter XV

     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, Hemingway, Ernest, A Farewell to Arms, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 274:

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

   • 2004, Nick Nolte as Colonel Oliver, Hotel Rwanda:

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

2. (offensive, ethnic slur, vulgar slang) A person of Negro descent who acts in an unapproved manner, usually as an archetypical badass.
   • 1996, Chris Rock, Chris Rock: Bring the Pain:

     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 **** it up.

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

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

   • 2010 April 13, Kelley, Kitty, quoting an unnamed town resident, Oprah: A Biography, New York: Crown, ISBN 9780307394866, OL 24087304M, page 193:

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

3. (African American Vernacular) Informal term of address.
   • 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. (now offensive) A fish, the luderick.
5. (now offensive, dated) A dark brown butterfly, Orsotriaena medus.
   • 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.

6. (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.
   • 1892, Western Electrician, volume 11, page 72:

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

7. (Britain, Cornwall, fishing, archaic) Holothuria nigra, the cotton spinner.
8. (archaic) A black caterpillar, the larva of the turnip sawfly.
   • 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.

9. (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.
10. (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.
    • 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.

Usage notes

• The word "nigger" is one of the most offensive taboo words in the English language, especially in the United States. In a study by Kristy Beers Fägersten, Americans rated nigger the most offensive word, more offensive than ****.^[1] A study by New Zealand's Broadcasting Standards Authority found that nigger was the second-most offensive word in New Zealand (after ****), offending 66% of people,^[2] and a similar study by several British broadcasting organizations found that "nigger" offended 68% of Brits and was the fifth most offensive word in the UK (after ****, ****, ****, and wanker).^[3]
• 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. Usage by non-blacks is almost invariably highly offensive.
• "Nigger" has derogatory connotations, suggesting not only darkness of skin, but general lack of intelligence; it is furthermore associated with the era of white colonization of Africa and enslavement of Africans and African Americans.
• To blunt its force, the word is frequently censored in direct quotations or euphemistically referred to as the "n-word".

Synonyms

• (derogatory term for dark-skinned person): blackie, coon, darkie, gator bait, groid, jigaboo, jungle bunny, kaffir, macaca, nig-nog, porch monkey, sambo, shitskin, spade, spearchucker, spook, tarbaby, wog

Derived terms

Translations

Related terms

• negro

Verb

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.
   • 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. (intransitive, offensive) To behave as a stereotypical black person.
   • 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!

3. (uncommon, transitive, offensive) To treat as inferior.
   • 1997 January 18, Joe Frisch, “Anglo-US relations under a Blair Government”, in uk.org.mensa, 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, 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 want to return to a land where they would be "niggered" for the benefit of the Israelis as the present Palestinian population is

Anagrams

• ginger, Ginger

References

1. ↑ Kristy Beers Fägersten A sociolinguistic analysis of swear word offensiveness (2007)
2. ↑ What Not to Swear
3. ↑ "Delete expletives?"

Danish

Etymology

Borrowing from English nigger.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈneɡ̊ʌ]

Noun

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

Synonyms

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

Norwegian

Etymology

From English nigger

Noun

nigger m

1. (vulgar, offensive) nigger

Synonyms

• svarting

Inflection

Swedish

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈnɪɡːer/

Noun

nigger c

1. (vulgar, offensive, dated) nigger, a variant of neger

Declension

Synonyms

• blatte
• neger
• svarting
• svartskalle