nigger

noun

1. (ethnic, offensive, slur, vulgar)A black person; a person of black African descent.

   “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.”

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

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

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

2. (ethnic, offensive, slang, slur, vulgar)A black person; a person of black African descent.

   “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 fuck it up.”

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

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

   “...and as I was leaving it occurred to me. "Hey, hey, Renee, quick question[...] Why is it that I can say the word ‘nigger’ with impunity but I can't say the word ‘faggot’?" And she said, "Because, David, you are not gay." I said, "Well, Renee... I'm not a nigger either."”

3. (ethnic, offensive, slur, vulgar)A member of any typically dark-skinned people (now especially in combinations like prairie nigger or sand nigger).

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

   “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.”

   “"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."”

   “Besides, where are you going to find a rajah who doesn’t understand Bank of England notes? These niggers aren’t savages, not by any means. Why, lots of them have been to Oxford.”

   “[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”

4. A friend, particularly a fellow black person (often as an informal term of address).

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

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

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

5. (figuratively)A person of any kind (particularly as a term of abuse).

   “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.”

6. (especially, offensive)A member of a group that is oppressed or marginalized in the manner of black people.

   “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.”

   “It's time for somebody to lead all of America's Niggers," he said at the Capitol Hill press conference when Shirley Chisholm announced she was running for president, "and by this I mean the Young, the Black, the Brown, the Women, the Poor—all the people who feel left out of the political process. If we can put the Nigger Vote together, we can bring about some real change in this country."”

   “Woman is the nigger of the world / Yes, she is / If you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with / Woman is the slave to the slaves”

7. (offensive)Any of various dark animals:
8. (dated, offensive)Any of various dark animals:

   “Nigger (Male) Orsotriaena medus moira Waterhouse and Lyell. 1914.”

   “The Nigger is a common butterfly in Singapore and can be found in the company of bush browns.”

9. (Cornwall, UK, archaic, offensive)Any of various dark animals:
10. (archaic, offensive)Any of various dark animals:

    “To this group belongs the nigger, or black caterpillar of the turnip, which is often in sufficient numbers to do much mischief.”

11. (archaic)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.

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

12. (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.

    “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 […]”

    “The word “nigger” means to the backwoodsman a small log placed when blazing, across large logs to fire them; by tending the fire so made, large logs are divided more quickly than by an ax—consequently “a nigger in a woodpile” means something which destroys it and not, as I had supposed, our African brother.”

13. (US, archaic)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.

    “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.”

14. (dated)A black screen used in conjunction with the camera to block light or produce special lighting effects.

    “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.”

verb

1. (dated, transitive)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.

   “[…] 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.”

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

   “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.”

   “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. (dated, transitive)To exhaust (soil) by cropping it year by year without manure.
3. (intransitive, offensive)To perform in blackface.

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

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

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

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

   “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!”

5. (offensive, transitive, uncommon)To treat as inferior.

   “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[.]”

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

   “Why would many Paletinians^([sic]) want to return to a land where they would be "niggered" for the benefit of the Israelis as the present Palestinian population is[?]”

name

1. (historical, offensive)A given name for a black pet.

   “Gibson's real affinity is with his dog, Nigger. When we first see Gibson returning from a raid, he is overjoyed to see his four-legged friend […]”

2. (derogatory)Niger (nation).

   “Recently the head nigger arrested 60 children from Benin, Togo, Niggeria, Ghana and Nigger, along with 20 of their Slave Masters, who were immigrants from West Africoonia.”

   “>Why are you critters so ashamed of being identified with your >Africoonian origins? Niggeria and Nigger have vast amounts of natural >resources[…]”

   “More recently, in 2005, it > was mass protests in Niamey, the capital of Nigger, that made the head > nigger wake up and take notice of that year's food crisis,[…]”