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poor white trash. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
First attested in 1835.
Noun
poor white trash (uncountable)
- (US, obsolete, ethnic slur, used by black slaves) White person or people employed in a servile position, for example, as a butler.
- Synonym: mean white
for the year 1835
, number
958, London, page
338:
In the south, there are no servants but blacks; for the greater proportion of domestics being slaves all species of servitude whatever is looked upon as a degradation; and the slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as ‘poor white trash’.]
1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC, part I, page 17:“Huccome po’ w’ite trash buy any niggers? Dey ain’ never owned mo’n fo’ at de mostes’.”
- (US, modern, derogatory, ethnic slur) White trash; poor, uneducated white person or people of low social status.
1991, Ted Tally, The Silence of the Lambs (motion picture), spoken by Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins):Good nutrition's given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling?
Derived terms