Meaning & use
quadroon
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Meanings
nouncountableoffensivearchaic
An outdated and offensive label from past systems of racial classification, used for a person said to have one Black grandparent and three white grandparents.
Grammar: Appears only in historical discussion and should not be used to describe real people today.
Historians note that the word quadroon was written into some nineteenth-century laws.
The census forms of that era used terms like quadroon, which are now rejected as offensive.
A museum exhibit explained how the term quadroon was used to classify people.
nouncountableoffensivearchaic
The word in its historical sense in colonial law and literature, to rank people by supposed fractions of ancestry.
Grammar: Found in historical texts, usually quoted and explained rather than used.
Old novels sometimes describe characters as quadroons, a label the modern reader should treat as offensive.
The professor explained how terms such as quadroon enforced a rigid racial hierarchy.
Word forms
| plural | quadroons |
|---|
Common combinations
- the term quadroon
- The term quadroon is now regarded as offensive.
- historical term quadroon
- The article analyzes the historical term quadroon.
- classified as a quadroon
- Under the old law, she was classified as a quadroon.
- quadroon and octoroon
- The terms quadroon and octoroon were part of a system of racial fractions.
Synonyms and how they differ
- mixed-race
- Mixed-race is the neutral modern description, whereas quadroon is an offensive historical label based on fractions.
- multiracial
- Multiracial is a respectful, current word, and does not rank people by ancestry.
Word family
Commonly confused: quadroon or quadruple?
quadroon vs quadruple
Quadruple means four times as much and has no link in meaning to quadroon, even though both come from words for four.
Practice
A student is writing about nineteenth-century laws. How should the word quadroon be treated?
Choose one answer.
Quadroon is a dated, offensive racial label, appropriate only when discussing history. It is not a neutral or polite modern word.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “quadroon”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.