Citations:nigger

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English citations of nigger

Noun: “dark-skinned person, especially of Negro descent”[edit]

  • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XV, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) [], London: Chatto & Windus, [], →OCLC, page 133:
    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.
  • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, “On the City Wall”, in In Black and White, Folio Society, published 2005, page 435:
    The Captain was not a nice man. He called all natives ‘niggers’, which, besides being extreme bad form, shows gross ignorance.
  • 1929, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms[1], New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 274:
    “Othello with his occupation gone,” she teased. “Othello was a nigger,” I said.
  • 1975 April 5, Frank Tarloff, “Like Father, Like Son”, in The Jeffersons, season 1, episode 12, spoken by Louise Jefferson (Isabel Sanford):
    $350 for a watch? Nigger, please.
  • 2004, Hotel Rwanda, spoken by Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte):
    You are not even a nigger, you are an African.

Noun: “Negro who acts in an unapproved manner, contrasted with a Negro who acts in an approved manner”[edit]

  • 1996, Chris Rock: Bring the Pain[2], Chris Rock (actor):
    It's like a civil war goin' on with black people, and there's two sides: 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. [] Hey, I love black people, but I hate niggers.
  • 2008, “The N Word”, in Greydon Square (music), The CPT Theorem:
    Think I'm overstating my case? This is a fact: / there's a very strong line between niggers and blacks. / See, niggers are followers, blacks normally lead. / Niggers call blacks "whitewash" soon as they on the scene.
  • 2010 April 13, Kitty Kelley, Oprah: A Biography, New York: Crown, →ISBN, →OL, page 193:
    Oprah asked another town resident, “What's the difference between a ‘black person’ and a ‘nigger’ for you?” She was told, “Blacks stayed at home during the civil rights march. Niggers are the ones that marched. . . . A nigger is one like Hosea Williams. They want to come up here and cause trouble.”

informal term of address[edit]

  • 2002 January 13, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, “Loaded Language”, in The Washington Post, review of Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy, page BW06:
    I had overheard him greet a buddy who called him on the phone with "Yo, nigger, what's up?"

powered tool for lifting logs[edit]

  • 1917, “Evansville Vocational Survey”, in The Indiana State Board of Education Educational Bulletin, volume 19, page 179:
    It is the duty of the head sawyer to control the speed of the saw, the movements of the carriage holding the log, and also the “nigger,” a power appliance used to lift the log to the carriage. [] If the log does not rest properly on the carriage it is possible to turn it with the “nigger,” which is supplied with hinged spurs, which are so adjusted as to catch in the surface of the log as the “nigger” rises, and releases their hold as it is lowered.

verb: logs[edit]

  • 1877, Elijah Kellogg, Forest Glen, or, The Mohawk's Friendship[3], Boston: Lee and Shepard, →OL, retrieved 2012-10-24:
    But you can't have Scip, because he'll have to chop with us ; but you can have a first-rate time niggering logs : you can have a fire in a stump, and roast potatoes and ears of corn.
  • 1966, Shakespeare Society of New York, William Hedges, New-Shakespeareana, The Unionist-Gazette Association, page 60:
    The question was asked me as a native of Maine if I could find out what “niggering” logs meant in the statement “We niggered the logs.”

Swedish citations of nigger

  • 1930, Svenska Dagbladet, no. 98, p. 13.
    Den amerikanske niggern, jazzkungen, som kommit till Europa.
    "The American nigger, the jazz king, who has come to Europe."