white man

English

Alternative forms

• White man
• White Man (collectively)

Noun

white man (plural white men)

1. A man of 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

Coordinate terms

• black man

Derived terms

• play the white man
• white man’s burden

Translations

Caucasian — see Caucasian

whites collectively

• Finnish: valkoinen mies
• Old Tupi: karaíba