Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun 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.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The offspring of a mulatto and a white person; a person having one fourth African blood.
- Fourth in descent from a negro parent, one parent in each generation having been white.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The offspring of a mulatto and a white person; a person quarter-blooded.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun historical A person of three-fourths
Caucasian descent and one fourthAfrican descent. - adjective historical Having three-fourths
Caucasian descent and one-fourthAfrican descent.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an offspring of a mulatto and a white parent; a person who is one-quarter black
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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"No: not half black, only a quarter -- what they call a quadroon in the
Olla Podrida Frederick Marryat 1820
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A quadroon is the child of a mestize mother and a white father, as a mestize is the child of a mulatto mother and a white father.
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"Ah, was it Miss Dumont's -- that is, the quadroon's servant."
Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue Warren T. Ashton
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On the same evening, what was called a quadroon ball took place.
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In Louisiana or the West Indies she would have been called a quadroon, or more loosely, a creole; in North Carolina, where fine distinctions were not the rule in matters of color, she was sufficiently differentiated when described as a bright mulatto.
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Even his own child, by a black woman or a mulatto, when the child is called a quadroon, and is very often as white as any English child, is frequently
Slave life in Virginia and Kentucky, or, Fifty years of slavery in the Southern States of America, Francis Fedric 1863
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The love of the quadroon was my source of pleasure; but, alas! pain predominated as my thoughts dwelt upon the Creole!
The Quadroon Adventures in the Far West Mayne Reid 1850
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Havanna, and the "quadroon" balls of New Orleans -- everywhere in the crowded haunts of the world.
The Rifle Rangers Mayne Reid 1850
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Alice Cromley was a quadroon, the greatest Creole beauty the Vieux Carré had ever seen.
Darkness Becomes Her Kelly Keaton 2011
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Alice Cromley was a quadroon, the greatest Creole beauty the Vieux Carré had ever seen.
Darkness Becomes Her Kelly Keaton 2011
yarb commented on the word quadroon
Generally speaking, each person's caste is decided by the quality of the blood, which shows itself, too plainly to be concealed, at first sight. Yet the least drop of Spanish blood, if it be only of quadroon or octoroon, is sufficient to raise one from the position of a serf, and entitle him to wear a suit of clothes,-- boots, hat, cloak, spurs, long knife, all complete, though coarse and dirty as may be,-- and to call himself Espanol, and to hold property, if he can get any.
- Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, ch. 13
September 6, 2008
bilby commented on the word quadroon
"Neville had a 'three-point' plan: first, the full-bloods would die out; second, take half-castes away from their mothers; third, control marriages among half-castes and so encourage intermarriage with the white community. The 'young half-blood maiden is a pleasant, placid, complacent person as a rule, while the quadroon (one-quarter Aboriginal) is often strikingly attractive, with her oftimes auburn hair, rosy freckled colouring, and good figure ...' These were the sort of people who should be elevated 'to our own plane'. In this way, it would be possible to 'eventually forget that there were ever any Aborigines in Australia'."
- Colin Tatz, 'Genocide in Australia'.
October 27, 2008
karensa commented on the word quadroon
"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."
- Louisa M. Alcott, Little Women, 1869
August 9, 2009