Where did the term "*****" come from?

Question

When did the term first originate? What was the original meaning? I know people get offended by the word and that it was used to refer to the slaves during the slavery period and African-American people after the Civil War.

Answer 1

It's simply Spanish for "black." The Iberians were the first global colonizers so the rest of the western colonizing world adopted the term to describe the dark skinned races in Africa.

Answer 2

The Romans used the word over 2000 years ago but only as an identifier / description for a race of people. There are many references to foreigners, soldiers and sailors in written scrolls and even graffiti from that era. The real kicker is that after the Roman defeated the Carthaginians ( (Modern day Tunisia) in the 2ND Punic War, they name the continent after their victorious General. Alas, he was a white guy: Scipio Africanus

Answer 3

It just means black - but what are words? They're simply symbols for the things we construct in our societies. Being called ***** in Latin cultures does not have the same connotation as it does in the US - and this is a very interesting way to explore the history of any given nation. By using the meanings constructed around words.

Nice question!

Answer 4

for the answer to this, turn to the spanish language. blanco is 'white' & ***** is 'black'. as the spanish moved across the globe in colonizing, they came across dark-skinned natives & so-called them as per their skin color. it was never intended to be used as a slur but kinda' turned out that way when spoke with distain. in fact, any benign word said in a certain tone can & does take on sinister meaning.

Answer 5

***** means black in Spanish and Portuguese. World explorers started using the term around 1442.

Answer 6

***** is a Spanish word which means black, but I don't know when it started to be used in U.K or in USA.

Answer 7

The term "*****" is an old term to identify that race of people. Old reference books of the 1940s and 50s, explaining the races of man, identify them in a group coinciding with Caucasian and Mongoloid--called *******.

Answer 8

These will help to verify which answer is the correct one.

Word and phrase origins.

http://www.word-detective.com/index.html

http://www.wordorigins.org/

http://www.worldwidewords.org/

http://www.takeourword.com/index.html

This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php

Answer 9

It is Spanish for black. So the word has come full circle.

Answer 10

the original meaning of ****** (n-g-r, before there was vowels) is god like. but i might be wrong