Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Cohabitation, sexual relations, marriage, or interbreeding involving persons of different races, especially in historical contexts as a transgression of the law.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Mixture or amalgamation of races: applied especially to sexual union between individuals of the black and white races.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A mixing of races; amalgamation, as by intermarriage of black and white.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The mixing or blending of
race inmarriage orbreeding ,interracial marriage. - noun figuratively A
mixing orblending , especially one which is considered to beinappropriate .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun reproduction by parents of different races (especially by white and non-white persons)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Beginning in the Reconstruction era, when the term miscegenation first was coined, she traces the creation of a racial hierarchy that bolstered white supremacy and banned the marriage of Whites to Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and American Indians as well as the marriage of Whites to Blacks.
Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegination Law and the Making of Race in America Mary L. Dudziak 2009
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Those are the sort of snots that believe "miscegenation" is Just Plain Bad ... or other such guff.
Thoughts on Narnia Hal Duncan 2009
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What we have with (sub -) cultures that condemn miscegenation is morality being itself unconscionable, the unethical masquerading as the ethical, prejudice wearing a disguise of piety.
An Open Letter to John C. Wright Hal Duncan 2009
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What we have with (sub -) cultures that condemn miscegenation is morality being itself unconscionable, the unethical masquerading as the ethical, prejudice wearing a disguise of piety.
Archive 2009-08-01 Hal Duncan 2009
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Jefferson's claim of unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence is, to Malcolm, an egregious example of miscegenation, where a Latin word is joined to an Anglo-Saxon prefix.
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It was just 85 years ago, in 1922, in the fascinating case of Rollins v. Alabama, that a black man named Jim Rollins was tried and convicted for "miscegenation" -- the crime of having sex with a white woman.
From the WSJ Opinion Archives James Taranto 2007
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"Natural Law" has nothing whatsoever to do with "miscegenation" - it mainly promotes Chopric practices like
WordPress.com News 2009
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So, if someone insists that miscegenation is a crime against nature so "abhorrent" that we must join the lynch mob, no matter how many stand with him, no matter if we're the only person standing against him, we should nevertheless be ready, willing and able to challenge this self-righteous nonsense, to say, this is not a vice -- because this would be the more ethical response even if societal morés condemn us for refusing to conform.
Archive 2009-08-01 Hal Duncan 2009
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So, if someone insists that miscegenation is a crime against nature so "abhorrent" that we must join the lynch mob, no matter how many stand with him, no matter if we're the only person standing against him, we should nevertheless be ready, willing and able to challenge this self-righteous nonsense, to say, this is not a vice -- because this would be the more ethical response even if societal morés condemn us for refusing to conform.
An Open Letter to John C. Wright Hal Duncan 2009
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The specter of cultural miscegenation is duly exorcized by insisting that this "second race" is really the progeny of an invading "Crescent horde" whose Moslem regions are "to intellect a desert space,/A wild without a fountain or a flower,/Where towers Oppression
The Ruins of Empire: Nationalism, Art, and Empire in Hemans's Modern Greece 2006
qroqqa commented on the word miscegenation
I wonder if the negative implication this word has for some is in part due to misunderstanding it as containing the negative mis-. It doesn't: it's misc- "mix" plus gen- "birth, generation".
August 8, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word miscegenation
I'm guessing the negative implication comes from racial biases, though that's a very interesting linguistic point, qroqqa.
August 8, 2008
steerpike commented on the word miscegenation
"I want authentic island cooking, even though I know that any cuisine is a miscegenation" , from Names For The Sea by Sarah Moss.
December 1, 2013
TankHughes commented on the word miscegenation
WOW wasn't aware of this term until today, used by angry people who hate an Old Navy ad: https://twitter.com/CivilJustUs/status/726825556680007680
May 1, 2016