poor white trash

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English

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Etymology

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First attested in 1835.

Noun

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poor white trash (uncountable)

  1. (US, obsolete, ethnic slur, used by black slaves) White person or people employed in a servile position, for example, as a butler.
    Synonym: mean white
    • [1835 May 30, The London Literary Gazette; and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c.of the collected Literary Gazette [] for the year 1835[1], number 958, London, page 338:
      In the south, there are no servants but blacks; for the greater proportion of domestics being slaves all species of servitude whatever is looked upon as a degradation; and the slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as ‘poor white trash’.]
    • 1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC, part I, page 17:
      “Huccome po’ w’ite trash buy any niggers? Dey ain’ never owned mo’n fo’ at de mostes’.”
  2. (US, modern, derogatory, ethnic slur) White trash; poor, uneducated white person or people of low social status.
    • 1991, Ted Tally, The Silence of the Lambs (motion picture), spoken by Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins):
      Good nutrition's given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling?

Derived terms

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