mulatto
Americannoun
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Anthropology. (not in technical use) the offspring of one white parent and one Black parent.
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Older Use: Offensive. a person who has both Black and white ancestors.
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mulatto
First recorded in 1585–95; from Spanish mulato “young mule,” equivalent to mul(o) mule 1 + -ato of unclear origin
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Explanation
The noun mulatto is an outdated term for someone with one black parent and one white parent. This word is now considered to be offensive. It was common to describe a person with both black and white ancestry as a mulatto during the period of slavery in the United States. Because of its dehumanizing roots and usage, this word has fallen out of favor. Today, people are more likely to use terms like multiracial or mixed race — or simply to identify their specific cultural and ethnic heritage.
Vocabulary lists containing mulatto
Twelve Years a Slave
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Black Like Me
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Vocabulary from Readings 4, Unit 4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mulatto Math Writer-performer Monique DeBose explores race, family and identity in this solo show with music.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 18, 2018
It’s “strange to wake up and realize you’re in style,” Senna wrote in a 1989 essay called “The Mulatto Millennium.”
From New York Times • Aug. 15, 2017
“The White Boy Shuffle” was published at the high point of nineteen-nineties multiculturalism—Gunnar, the ultimate “cultural mulatto,” attends a P.C.-obsessed school called Mestizo Mulatto Mongrel Elementary—and the novel was knowingly inauthentic.
From The New Yorker • Mar. 31, 2015
The Cosby-owned Colescott on view, “Death of a Mulatto Woman,” is one of the few pieces from their collection that stakes out a strong political view of the world.
From Washington Post
In one of his anxious despatches to headquarters he says plaintively: "With respect to the Mulatto Corps in this city, I am indeed at a loss to know what policy is best to pursue."
From The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
