Definition of "nigger" in Anglais

noun

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

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

3. (African-American Vernacular) A friend, particularly a fellow black person (often as an informal term of address).

4. (figurative, especially African-American Vernacular, otherwise offensive) A person of any kind (particularly as a term of abuse).

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

6. (now offensive) Any of various dark animals:

7. (archaic, electricity) 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.

8. (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.

9. (archaic, US) 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.

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

verb

1. (transitive, dated) 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.

2. (transitive, dated) To exhaust (soil) by cropping it year by year without manure.

3. (intransitive, now offensive) To perform in blackface.

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

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