Inherited from Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hwīt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweydós, a byform of *ḱweytós (“bright; shine”). Cognates * West Frisian wyt * Dutch wit * German weiß * German weiss * Norwegian Bokmål hvit * Norwegian Nynorsk kvit * Swedish vit * Danish hvid * Lithuanian šviẽsti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”) * Old Church Slavonic свѣтъ (světŭ, “light”), свѣтьлъ (světĭlŭ, “clear, bright”) * Persian سفید (sefid, “white”), Persian سپید (sepid, “white”) * Avestan 𐬯𐬞𐬀𐬉𐬙𐬀 (spaēta, “white”) * Sanskrit श्वेत (śvetá, “white, bright”)
Bright and colourless; reflecting equal quantities of all frequencies of visible light.
Write in black ink on white paper.
white as the whitest lily on a stream.c. 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Holidays:
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While some of the more exotic varieties are becoming more popular with nationwide growers, such as the pale pinkish white pineberry, local farms will frequently plant a few different varieties to best suit their region.2022 May 9, Casey Barber, “Strawberry season has arrived. Here are tips for enjoying spring’s sweetest treat”, in CNN, archived from the original on 04 Jul 2022:
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Capitalized, Sometimes Of or relating to Europeans or those of European descent, regardless if their skin has cool or warm undertones.
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Capitalized, Sometimes Of or relating to Caucasians (people with white complexion and European ancestry).
[…]more white corporations cognizant of the mounting purchasing power of the Negro consumer, have Negro representatives in the field[…].1949, Wendell P. Alston, “The Green Book”, in The Negro Motorist Green Book, New York: Victor H. Green, published 1949, page 3:
Ms. Ringwald finds a few things about these films regrettable. One thing she found "significantly disturbing," she wrote, "was how white the films are."2004 May 9, Michael Joseph Gross, “When the Losers Ruled in Teenage Movies”, in New York Times:
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If you're from Africa, why are you white?2004, Tina Fey, Mean Girls, spoken by Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried):
“In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”2025 December 21, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, quoting JD Vance, “Vance Refuses to Take Sides in G.O.P. Fight Over Bigotry”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
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Capitalized, Sometimes By U.S. Census Bureau definition, of or relating to people hailing from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! / They come! they come!"1812–1818, Lord Byron, “(please specify |canto=I to IV)”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, (please specify the stanza number):
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Of a person or skin Lacking coloration (tan) from ultraviolet light; not tanned.
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Of an animal With leucism.
Why should the birthplace of the gods in ancient Egyptian times align with the birthplace of the White Lions in our times?2010, Linda Tucker, “Gold: Subterranean Sun” (chapter 21), in Mystery of the White Lions: Children of the Sun God, Hay House, page 218:
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Of coffee or tea Containing cream, milk, or creamer.
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Board games, Chess, Games The standard denomination of the playing pieces of a board game deemed to belong to the white set, no matter what the actual colour.
The white pieces in this set are in fact made of light green glass.
Consequently, in the initial position the white pieces and pawns are placed on the first and second ranks; the black pieces and pawns on the eighth and seventh ranks.2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 21:
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Pertaining to an ecclesiastical order whose adherents dress in white habits; Cistercian.
White as thy fame, and as thy honour clear.1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Second Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:
'The preacher had not proceeded far in his sermon,' said the man, ' before I thought him the whitest man I ever saw. My hat was instantly taken off and thrown under the seat, and I found myself listening with the most profound attention.'1837, M. Huxley, in Timothy Mather Cooley, Sketches of the life and character of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes, A. M., for many years pastor of a church in Rutland, Vt., and late in Granville, New-York, page 73
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... the parson, […1867, Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches, George Routledge and Sons, page 36:
... Rayner seems powerful anxious to get you on the paper. A good fellow is Rayner; as white a man as I ever knew; and he has as many old friends as would make a good-sized city.1877, Walter Besant, James Rice, The Golden Butterfly, page 218:
"So I'm here to say I'm sorry." Another big gulp. Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and held out an eleven-inch hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' good; an' this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments^([sic])." "You're white," said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to the tips of his ears.1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous:
No whiter page than Addison's remains. / He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, / And sets the passions on the side of Truth,1737, Alexander Pope, First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace; republished in The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902, page 194:
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Grey, as from old age; having silvery hair; hoary.
Your high engendered battles 'gainst a head / So old and white as this.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
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Archaic Characterized by freedom from that which disturbs, and the like; fortunate; happy; favourable.
On the whole, however, the dominie reckoned this as one of the white days of his life.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
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Obsolete Regarded with especial favour; favourite; darling.
I am his white boy, and will not be gulled.c. 1626, John Ford, Tis Pity She's a Whore:
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Government, Politics Pertaining to constitutional or anti-revolutionary political parties or movements.
Aimée de Coigny had always adopted with enthusiasm the political views of her ruling lover and she had thus already held nearly every shade of opinion from red republicanism to white reaction.1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, published 2010, page 163:
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Of tea Made from immature leaves and shoots.
Most often consisting of a budset pluck, a frost tea has the clarity and freshness of a white tea, with the richness and lingering finish of a finely crafted black tea.2012, Mary Lou Heiss, Robert J. Heiss, The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook, →ISBN:
Media, Publishing, Typography Said of a symbol or character outline, not solid, not filled with color. Compare black (“said of a character or symbol filled with color”).
Compare two Unicode symbols: ☞ = "WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX"; ☛ = "BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX"
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Characterised by the presence of snow.
a white Christmas
a white Easter
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Of a set of armor Alwhite, pertaining to white armor.
For instance, tyro jousters in fifteenth-century Iberia wore “white armor,” while experienced men wore surcoats over their harness (Fallows 2010, 80), while fabric-covered breastplates are depicted in many examples of fifteenth-century northern European art.2015 August 31, Albrecht Classen, Handbook of Medieval Culture, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, →ISBN:
Inherited from Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hwīt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweydós, a byform of *ḱweytós (“bright; shine”). Cognates * West Frisian wyt * Dutch wit * German weiß * German weiss * Norwegian Bokmål hvit * Norwegian Nynorsk kvit * Swedish vit * Danish hvid * Lithuanian šviẽsti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”) * Old Church Slavonic свѣтъ (světŭ, “light”), свѣтьлъ (světĭlŭ, “clear, bright”) * Persian سفید (sefid, “white”), Persian سپید (sepid, “white”) * Avestan 𐬯𐬞𐬀𐬉𐬙𐬀 (spaēta, “white”) * Sanskrit श्वेत (śvetá, “white, bright”)
The color of snow or milk; the color of light containing equal amounts of all visible wavelengths.
Not only were the platforms tiled in white, the tunnels were painted white too - to prettify them, and make them less claustrophobic - and the Central proudly issued a postcard of its tunnel-whitening machine.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 117:
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A person of European descent with light-colored skin.
The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores through the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we four whites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any danger coming from the woods.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
We could have ridden for weeks, possibly months, and never seen a white man had it not been that Laurie was riding from scattered white to white.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 81:
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The War on Drugs proved popular among key white voters, particularly whites who remained resentful of black progress, civil rights enforcement, and affirmative action.2012, Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, →ISBN, page 54:
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Any butterfly of the subfamily Pierinae in the family Pieridae.
Several other beautiful butterflies rewarded my search in this place [...] The most abundant butterflies were the whites and yellows (Pieridae), several of which I had already found at Lombock and at Coupang, while others were new to me.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 297:
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White wine.
A bottle of red, a bottle of white / It all depends upon your appetite / I'll meet you any time you want / In our Italian Restaurant.1977, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”, in Billy Joel (music), The Stranger:
Those were my first impressions of wine: Ladies drink chilled, soft white while they gossip in the kitchen; old men drink strong, room-temperature red to get shellacked.2014, Maximillian Potter, Shadows in the Vineyard:
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White coffee
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Abbreviation, Ellipsis Ellipsis of white bread
› Any object or substance that is of the color white.
You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 203:
I've got to hit the streets; I've got to move this white.2004, “On The Run”, Kanye West (music), performed by Bump J ft. Rick James, Atlantic:
Ten grand a week we were clearing: base, white, meth, weed, anything. I can get you anything to get you high.2019 January 20, Ann Cleeves, Paul Matthew Thompson, “Cuckoo” (1:26:51 from the start), in Lawrence Gough, director, Vera, season 9, episode 2 (TV series), spoken by Tyler Lennon (Louis Healy):
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We was flyin' up O with white, we was buildin' lines, now it's clothing lines2024, “Entrapreneur”, performed by Central Cee:
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The snow- or ice-covered "green" in snow golf.
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A white pigment.
Venice white
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A white bean.
Nearly two-thirds of the Idaho crop has been great northerns, one-sixth small reds, and the remainder small flat whites and pintos and seed for snap beans and baby limas (table 21).1952, Columbia River and Tributaries, Northwestern United States, United States Government Printing Office, page 3764:
'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
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The enclosed part of a letter of the alphabet, especially when handwritten.
Also it giueth a great grace to your writing, if the whites of certeine letters bee made of one equall bignesse with the o. supposing the same were all round, as the white of the b. of the a. p. y. v. w. x. q. d. g. and s.1594, Hugh Plat, chapter 38, in The Jewell House of Art and Nature, London, page 42:
[…] the a. b. d. g. o. p. q. &c. […] must be made with equal whites.1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, page 18:
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She copied the whole alphabet like that, as though only the inside whites of the letters registered on her mind.1931, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in Police at the Funeral, Penguin, published 1939, page 157:
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A feather, from the wing of the cock ostrich, that is of the palest possible shade.
3.—Wing-Quills or Remiges; Whites and Feminas.—The wing-quills are the largest feathers in the wing, and are arranged in a single row. They include the “Whites” in the cock, and the “Feminas” in the hen, as well as the “Byocks” or “Fancies” in the cock.1909, Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope, page 514:
The usual kinds of ostrich feathers known to the trade come into the Tripoli market. These are whites, blacks, feminas, byocks, spadonas, boos, drabs and floss.1909 August 12, “Ostrich Feathers of Tripoli”, in Neenah Daily Times, volume 53, number 8,451, Neenah, Wis.; Menasha, Wis., column 5:
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Whites, primes, pound, $120 to $300[…]The whites and blacks come from the male birds, the feminas and drabs from the female, the spadones are the first clipping taken from the young birds and the tails from each.1910 October 30, The Arizona Republican, volume XXI, number 161, Phoenix, Ariz., page 9:
This parcel included 286 lbs. of feathers known as whites, and 211 lbs. of feathers known as feminas. The whites are described as lot 12, and the feminas as lot 13.1923, South African Law Reports. Cape Provincial Division: Decisions of the Supreme Court of South Africa (Cape of Good Hope Provincial Decision)., page 532:
In this position, white has an opportunity to make a good move.
1...Qd3 2 Ne1 Nd2! wins since 3 Nxd3 Rxf1 mate while 3 Qxc7+ Kg6 only delays the end. The best White can do is 3 Qc3+ Qxc3 4 Rxc3 Rxe1 when Black also wins the Bf1 and will be two pieces up.2023 January 13, Leonard Barden, “Chess: Carlsen takes on young guns at Wijk as world champion eyes record”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 23 Jan 2023:
Inherited from Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hwīt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweydós, a byform of *ḱweytós (“bright; shine”). Cognates * West Frisian wyt * Dutch wit * German weiß * German weiss * Norwegian Bokmål hvit * Norwegian Nynorsk kvit * Swedish vit * Danish hvid * Lithuanian šviẽsti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”) * Old Church Slavonic свѣтъ (světŭ, “light”), свѣтьлъ (světĭlŭ, “clear, bright”) * Persian سفید (sefid, “white”), Persian سپید (sepid, “white”) * Avestan 𐬯𐬞𐬀𐬉𐬙𐬀 (spaēta, “white”) * Sanskrit श्वेत (śvetá, “white, bright”)
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To make white; to whiten; to bleach.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 23:27:
so as no fuller on earth can white them1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Mark 9:3:
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In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 199:
Etymology Capitalized due to this racial sense's connotation of (current or historical) European origin, so as to follow the capitalization rules for nationalities and ethne, known in former centuries as “races” (e.g., “the Chinese race”, “the English race”), and also, perhaps, as a way to explicitly distinguish it from the color sense, which is never capitalized outside proper nouns.
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Alternative letter-case form of white (“European”).
The Whites on the mission were a special kind of white person, special in the way that my grandmother had explained to me, for they were holy.1988, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 155:
To add insult to injury, not only do Whites shame each other but every other race joins in because they are also educated to believe Whites have somehow screwed them over and are still screwing them over.2025 April 8, Sarah Stock, “Five Common Myths About White People — Debunked”, in Rift TV, archived from the original on 12 Jan 2026:
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Government, PoliticsHistorical An anticommunist who fought against the Reds during the Russian Civil War; the term is mostly associated with monarchist forces.
The eight files (from left to right for White and from right to left for Black) are indicated by the small letters, a, b, c, d, e, f, g and h, respectively.2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2025, page 21: