snuff-and-butter

English

Noun

snuff-and-butter (plural snuff-and-butters)

1. (dated, derogatory, ethnic slur) An individual of mixed racial heritage.
   • 1883, Sir Walter Besant, “The Captains' Room etc.”, in The Message of the Mute, chapter 1, page 18:

     Your sweetheart fell in love with you in the Port of London, and presently afterwards with another pretty woman in the Port of Calcutta, which is generally the way with poor Tom Bowling. She was a snuff-and-butter, because at Calcutta they are as plenty as blackberries; and when young, snuff-and-butter is not to be despised, having bright eyes; […]

   • 1921, Sir Henry Rider Haggard, She and Allan, chapter 8 Pursuit:

     In the event of the beasts failing us, we took also ten of the best of those Strathmuir men who had accompanied us on the sea-cow trip, to serve as bearers when it became necessary. It cannot be said that these snuff-and-butter fellows—for most, if not all of them had some dash of white blood in their veins—were exactly willing volunteers. Indeed, if a choice had been left to them, they would, I think, have declined this adventure.

   • 1924, Thomas Gann, chapter 1, in In An Unknown Land, page 14:

     They form a shouting, gesticulating, chaffering, laughing, quarrelling, noisy throng, their skins varying from lightest olive through snuff and butter and café-au-lait to coal-black, their bright-coloured clothes making a constantly changing kaleidoscope around the market square.