poor white trash

English

Etymology

First attested in 1835.

Noun

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

• PWT
• white trash