half-breed

noun, adj — 5 senses

half-breed

nounalso spelled Half-Breed

Etymology From half- + breed.

1

Dated, Derogatory, Ethnic, Offensive, Slur A person of mixed racial parentage or ancestry, especially one of mixed white and American Indian parentage (metis, métis, Metis, Métis; mestizo).

  • Except for a few half-breeds in the town, there are no native Christians in the island of Timor.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 307:
  • It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
2 more examples
  • The half-breeds or Metis along the Saskatchewan River asked that they be given a legal title to the land which they occupied. […] The half-breeds found that constitutional agitation was hopeless and began open hostilities.1921, Watson Kirkconnell, “Military Annals of Victoria”, in Victoria County Centennial History, Lindsay, Ontario: Watchman-Warder Press, →OCLC, page 186:
  • Some oppose A.I.M. leaders as outsiders; some resent the leadership of Mr. Wilson; full‐blooded Indians resent halfbreeds; the have‐nots resent those with relative wealth.1973 March 4, John Kifner, “The Ghosts Dance Once Again at Wounded Knee”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
2

A hybrid animal or plant.

Synonyms
breed

half-breed

adj

Etymology From half- + breed.

1

Dated, Derogatory, Offensive, Of a person having dual heritage; having mixed racial parentage or ancestry

2

Of an animal or plant Hybridized; having one purebred parent; descended from parents of different breeds or with different traits

Related terms
half-bred, half-caste, mestizo, Métis, métis, Metis, metis, Mischling, mixed-race, mulatto

Half-Breed

noun

Etymology From half-breed, half- + breed.

1

A member of the Half-Breeds, a former Republican political party during the Gilded Age.

Coordinate terms
Stalwart

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for half-breed and Half-Breed.