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white man. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
white man, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Alternative forms
Noun
white man (plural white men)
- A man of northern European descent or having that appearance.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:white person
1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, , →OCLC, part I, page 198:Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man, - I was told the chief's son, - in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man - and of course it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades.
- White people collectively; white culture.
The arrival of the white man brought new things and new ideas, but also new wars and new diseases.
- 1927, A. M. Hocart, Are Savages Custom-Bound?, in Man, vol. 27
- Savages are commonly supposed to be the slaves of custom to a far greater degree than the White Man, who by contrast appears as the child of reason.
- 1933, G. St. J. Orde Browne, British Justice and the African, in the Journal of the Royal African Society, vol. 32, no. 127
- very little attempt seems to have been made so far to deal with the whole problem of the African in contact with white man’s law,
1992, Bruce Shaw, When the Dust Come in Between, page 149:Well the Aboriginals are trying to step forward a little but in a lot of ways the white man is still keeping them down, in a politeful sort of way.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see white, man.
1883, Henry Richter, Chess Simplified!, page 4:The white men are always put on that side of the board which commences by row 1, and the black men are placed opposite.
1908, The Chess Amateur, volume 2, page 39:We will suppose that you are the player of the white men, and that your opponent[,] the player of the black men[,] is sitting opposite to you, ready for battle.
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