quadroon

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quad·roon

(kwŏ-dro͞on′)

A person having white ancestors except for one black grandparent. Used especially as a classification under certain European colonial legal systems and now considered offensive.

[Alteration of Spanish cuarterón, from cuarto, quarter, from Latin quārtus; see k^wetwer- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

quadroon

(kwɒˈdruːn)

(Peoples) old-fashioned offensive the offspring of a Mulatto and a White person; a person who is one-quarter Black

[C18: from Spanish cuarterón, from cuarto quarter, from Latin quartus]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

quad•roon

(kwɒˈdrun)

n.

a person having one-fourth black ancestry; the offspring of a mulatto and a white.

[1640–50; alter. of Sp cuarterón, derivative of cuarto fourth< Latin quārtus; see -oon]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun

quadroon - an offspring of a mulatto and a white parent; a person who is one-quarter black

archaicism, archaism - the use of an archaic expression

mixed-blood - a person whose ancestors belonged to two or more races

Translations

sangue misto

quadroon

[kwɒˈdruːn] N → cuarterón m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

quadroon

n → Viertelschwarze(r) mf, → Viertelneger(in) m(f) (neg!), → Terzerone m (spec), → Terzeronin f (spec)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in classic literature ?

A quadroon nurse followed them about with a faraway, meditative air.

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There were slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys, boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones, and a merry little quadroon, who could not be taken in elsewhere, but who was welcome to the `Bhaer-garten', though some people predicted that his admission would ruin the school.

March couldn't get over her surprise, and insisted on shaking hands with every one of the featherless birds, from tall Franz and Emil to the little quadroon, who had the sweetest voice of all.

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Here the door opened, and a small quadroon boy, between four and five years of age, entered the room.

At this moment, the door was pushed gently open, and a young quadroon woman, apparently about twenty-five, entered the room.

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Quadroon, with carte blanche on the Slave question); indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the income drawn from the borough was of great use to the house of Queen's Crawley.

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familiar local-color language: "Some of the quadroons found comfort

ABSOLUTELY NOVEL: THE EVENT AND CHARLES CHESNUTT'S PAUL MARCHAND, F.M.C

Emily Clark demonstrates that free people of color married in ways and for reasons much more complex than those suggested by stereotypical narratives about the New Orleans "quadroons." Clark reveals that free Blacks' considerations about marriage were made in an Atlantic context strongly affected by the Haitian revolution and other complex phenomena.

Cecile Vidal (ed.): Louisiana: Crossroads of the Atlantic World

Informed by eugenics, the Australian Census from 1911 until 1966 classified Aboriginal people by supposed blood quantum--full-blood, half-caste, quadroons and octaroons (Rowse 2006:6).

It all comes down to ticking a box: collecting Aboriginal identification in a 30-year longitudinal health study

The ledger, compiled by Carleton's staff from the spring to the fall of 1783, reveals the racism of the day, referring to Black Loyalists as rascals, quadroons, mulattos, mustees and wenches.

Carleton's Book of Negroes: a ledger's legacy

(17) See Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Quadroon Girl" (1842); Lydia Maria Child's short stories "The Quadroons" (1842) and "Slavery's Pleasant Homes" (1843); Thomas Mayne Reid's novel The Quadroon (1856); and Dion Boucicault's play The Octoroon (1859).

Mapping the terrain of black writing during the early New Negro era

Men, women, children, Northerners, Southerners, slaves, slave owners, bounty catchers, legislators, farmers--married and unmarried, deeply religious and lacking faith, and of various ethnic parentage (mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons)--all leap into the narrative, shedding light on the evils wrought by slavery.