white trash

English

Etymology

A shortening, first attested in 1850, of poor white trash, which black slaves in the Southern United States were said to call white individuals who worked in servile positions (for example, as butlers).

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

white trash (uncountable)

1. (US, idiomatic, derogatory, ethnic slur, offensive) A poorly educated white person or, collectively, white people of low social status and often regarded as lazy, irresponsible, incompetent, etc.

   This white trash can't pay for his own beer.

   These lowlife characters are white trash.

   • 1919, H. P. Lovecraft, Beyond the Wall of Sleep‎^[1]:

     Among these odd folk, who correspond exactly to the decadent element of “white trash” in the South, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status is probably below that of any other section of the native American people.

   • 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 71:

     “So, he is the father of Emmie Slattery’s baby,” thought Scarlett. “Oh, well. What else can you expect from a Yankee man and a white-trash girl?”

   • 1987 [1984], James Ellroy, Because the Night, New York: Avon, →ISBN, page 31:

     When Linda was two and living in a San Pedro dive with her white-trash parents, he was twelve and gaining clandestine access to wealthy homes in Bronxville and Scarsdale, New York, exorcising his nocturnal heart by delivering himself to the quiet muse of other people's dwellings, sometimes stealing, sometimes not. . . .

   • 2017, “Tonya Harding”, performed by Sufjan Stevens:

     Just some Portland white trash / You confronted your sorrow / Like there was no tomorrow / While the rest of the world only laughed

Synonyms

• See whitey

Meronyms

• See whitey

Derived terms

• white trashery
• white-trashy

Related terms

• trailer trash

Descendants

• → Swedish: WT

Translations

white person or people of low social status (pejorative)

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 白色垃圾 (zh) (báisè lājī, báisè lèsè)

• Finnish: valkoinen roskaväki, valkoroska (fi)
• French: déchet blanc m, white trash (fr) m
• German: White Trash n, weißer Abschaum m, weißes Gesindel mit viel Geld n (with cash)
• Japanese: ホワイトトラッシュ (howaitotorasshu), (poor white) プアホワイト (puahowaito)
• Kazakh: ақ қоқыс (aq qoqys)
• Russian: бе́лое отро́дье n (béloje otródʹje), бе́лое отре́бье n (béloje otrébʹje), бе́лая шваль f (bélaja švalʹ), бе́лый му́сор m (bélyj músor)
• Swedish: WT
• Thai: ฝรั่งขี้นก (th) (fà-ràng-kîi-nók)

Further reading

• “white trash”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “white trash”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “white trash”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• “white trash”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “white trash” (US) / “white trash” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.