Definition of "nigger"

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.

1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XV, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], page 133

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

1929, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms‎, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 274

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

2004, Hotel Rwanda, spoken by Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte)

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

1880 June 19, Henry Kendall, “My Piccaninny”, in The Australian Town and Country Journal, page 28, column 4

Many of the rank and file had no better conception of the proud and sensitive Maori than was implied in the degrading ‘nigger’ theory, invariably applied by the unthinking Briton to all coloured races.

1902, George Stoddart Whitmore, The Last Maori War in New Zealand..., page vi

"The public have taken no interest in the matter up to now, but this letter of Challenger's in the Times will make them wake up, I'm thinking." "And this about Sumatra?" "Well, it's a long cry from a blurred line in a spectrum to a sick nigger in Sumatra. And yet the chiel has shown us once before that he knows what he's talking about."

1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton

[H]e commenced to kill Indians. We needed no second invitation. God it was a butchery. At the first fire we killed a round dozen and we did not let up. Before the last poor nigger reached the bottom of the slope there was fifty-eight of them lay slaughtered among the gravels. They just slid down the slope like chaff down a hopper, some turned this way, some that, and they made a chain about the base of the mountain

1985, Cormac McCarthy, “Chapter 10”, in blood Meridian, Random House

At Crescent Lake in Oneida County, Hubert Locke, who is black and serves as the Dean of the University of Washington's School of Public Affairs, was confronted with words to the effect of, "Now the Commission has a nigger working for them" and "I guess there are two kinds of niggers—red niggers and black niggers"[...] These blatant manifestations of racism directed toward Mr. Locke serve to illustrate the racist attitudes experienced daily by tribal members.

1988, James H. Schlender, quotee, “Written Testimony of James H. Schlender, Executive Administrator, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, May 18, 1988”, in Anti-Indian Violence: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, second session, May 4 and 18, 1988‎, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published 1989, page 197

“Snoop Dog!” one of them yelled. “That’s my nigga from Long Beach, man.”

1997, McKinley Lee, Chosen by Fate: My Life inside Death Row Records

I wonna say whassup to all my Niggers, you know, peace and one love.

2001 Autumn-Winter, Awad Ibrahim, quoting ‘Sam’, “Hey, whadap homeboy?”, in Taboo‎, page 94

I had overheard him greet a buddy who called him on the phone with "Yo, nigger, what's up?"

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

People be surprised. I have friends who're all kinds a letters. Everybody loves me an' I love everybody. I got friends who are Ls, I got friends who are Bs, and I got friends who are Gs. But the Ts hate my fucking guts. And I don't blame 'em! It's not their fault. It's mine. I can't stop tellin' jokes about these niggas.

2021, Dave Chapelle, The Closer

The governor made it into office by campaigning against the niggers. And people should understand who the niggers are. It's the elderly one week. Then it's those on public assistance. Now he sees women as niggers, and he's trying to do them in.

1979 April 14, Jil Clark (quoting Mel King), "King Axes Women's Commission", in Gay Community News, page 1

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

1892, Western Electrician, volume 11, page 72

A sawyer will come along and be touted and recommended as the best in the country when his chief qualifications will be his ability to jerk the carriage back and forth in a hurry without striking the bumper or to turn the log with the nigger […]

1918, Leonard L. Shertzer, How to Build and Operate a Sawmill, 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.

1983, Goldenseal, volume 9, page 20

Care should be taken to check visually from the position occupied by the subject and from the camera also, to ascertain that the nigger is positioned correctly and does not obstruct the picture area.

1961, Peter Snow, Electronic Flashlight Photography, page 114

[…] 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.

1844, J. W. Dunbar Moodie, “The Ould Dhragoon; or, a visit to the beaver meadow”, in Literary garland, volume 2, Lovell & Gibson, page 360

The operation was this: they placed smaller logs and dry rubbish across the log and applied fire to them; this was called “niggering”.

1914, Indiana State Teachers Association, Readings in Indiana history, Indiana University, History Section, page 171

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.

1956, Joseph Kirkland, Zury: the meanest man in Spring County: a novel of western life, University of Illinois Press, page 40

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.

1980, Elaine Hedges, William Hedges, Land and imagination: the rural dream in America, Hayden Book Co., page 69

There is a general agreement that niggering took over from mummering to keep up the old custom.

1976, Cake and Cockhorse, volume 7, page 220

His father said, “Niggering, I was niggering about. You knew that surely.”

1989, Reynolds Price, The surface of earth, Ballantine Books, page 120

Forrest’s rediscovery of his father coincides with his discovery that old Robinson’s “niggering around” produced at least one child of mixed race.

2007, George Hovis, Vale of Humility: Plain Folk in Contemporary North Carolina Fiction, Univ of South Carolina Press, page 86

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!

2008, Joe Ambrose, Gimme Danger: The Story Of Iggy Pop, Music Sales Group

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

1997 January 18, Joe Frisch, “Anglo-US relations under a Blair Government”, in uk.org.mensa‎ (Usenet)

> He is on TV saying that he was "abused" by the police and treated like a nigger.

1999 December 3, Jeff Welch, “Who is McGuyver and why was he "niggered?”, in seattle.general, December 3‎ (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

2003 July 16, “Mob Attacks Palestinian Pollsters Who Told The Truth”, in soc.retirement (Usenet)