whitey, n.
(ˈhwaɪtɪ)
Also whity, whitie.
[f. white a. + -y6.]
1. A white man or woman; white people collectively; in quot. 1828 as a quasi-proper name: cf. blacky n. 1. (Also with capital initial.) Freq. derog. slang (chiefly Blacks').
| 1828 P. Cunningham N.S. Wales (ed. 3) II. 9 The instant blacky perceives whity beating a retreat, he vociferates after him—‘Go along, you dam rascal’. 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §385/2 White person,..whitie. 1952 S. Selvon Brighter Sun iv. 61 A white-skinned girl..was called ‘Whitey cockroach!’ 1964 Time 31 July 12/3 Harlem..is where the white man is no longer the ‘ofay’ but ‘Mr. Charlie’ or ‘the man’, and mostly ‘whitey’, derived from the Black Nationalist talk of ‘the blue-eyed white devil’. 1967 C. Drummond Death at Furlong Post xi. 138 Get to hell away from me! You Whities stink! 1968 Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Apr. 329/2 The world of ‘Whitey’ into which these Negroes no longer want to be integrated. 1971 A. King One Love 19 There's a Whitey in every Black man that has to come out, or die, before he's ever himself. 1972 R. K. Smith Ransom i. 24 We're gonna hit Whitey and hit him again. 1976 Listener 15 Apr. 462/1 There is a pub in south London where black intellectuals meet, and if you happen to be a white man, the landlord—who is of West Indian origin—delights in calling you ‘whitie’. As far as he is concerned, it's all in fun. 1977 New Yorker 26 Sept. 131/1 He's no more than a trivial whitey to be squished. 1980 Amer. Speech LV. 211 It encompassed a protest of whitey's ‘theft’ of yet another style of jazz—swing. |
2. = whiting n. 1 b (a).
| 1912 A. McCormick Words fr. Wild-Wood vi. 82, I had thrashed the stream..in the hope of getting a ‘whitey’. |