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/waɪt pˈərsən/ Listen

noun

White person n. A person of the Caucasian race (). Note: In the time of slavery in the United States white person was generally construed as a person without admixture of colored blood. In various statutes and decisions in different States since 1865 white person is construed as in effect (as of 1913): one not having any negro blood (Ark., Okla.); one having less than one eighth of negro blood (Ala., Fla., Ga., Ind., Ky., Md., Minn., Miss., Mo., N.C., S.C., Tenn., Tex.); one having less than one fourth (Mich., Neb., Ore., Va.); one having less than one half (Ohio). Since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960's and 1970's, the term has little legal significance for some purposes, as in filling out questionnaires, a person's race is whatever the person claims it to be.

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Etymology of 'White person'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"White person" Quotes from Famous Books

... the Navajos and Piutes for many years, and his wife had been brought up among them. She was held in peculiar reverence and affection by both tribes in that part of the country. Probably she knew more of the Indians' habits, religion, and life than any white person in the West. Both tribes were friendly and peaceable, but there were bad Indians, half-breeds, and outlaws that made the trading-post a venture Withers had long considered precarious, and he wanted to move and intended to some day. His nearest neighbors in New Mexico and ...

— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... good and noble instincts, and it is with pride that we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who ever interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our Indians. He built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and to his dying day he claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more restraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other reformer that ever, ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... furnished to all the people on the place, tickets of admission; and for all the holidays, or for Christmas and three days after, I kept open house at the barn. Night and day I kept open house. I went and came myself, knowing that the sight of me hindered nobody's pleasure; but I let in no other white person, and I believe I gained the lasting ill-will of the overseer by refusing him. I stood responsible for everybody's good behaviour, and had no forfeits to pay. And enjoyment reigned, during those days, in the barn; a ...

— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... niggers and then put salt and pepper into their wounds. I used to tell daddy that 'You'll have to forget that if you want to go to heaven.' I would be in the house working and daddy would be telling some white person how they 'bused the slaves, and sometimes he would be tellin' some ...

— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... was not a negro, not a mulatto; she had less than one fourth negro blood. Therefore, she did not fall under the inhibitions of the Illinois law forbidding marriages between persons of color, negro or mulatto, with a white person. Douglas confirmed what Mr. Brooks had told me; and he gave me the opinion that a common-law marriage was legal, but that Fortescue would have to bring witnesses to Jacksonville to testify that he and Zoe had taken each other as husband and wife; and that this had been ...

— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

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