apartheid

American  

[uh-pahr-tahyt, -teyt] / əˈpɑr taɪt, -teɪt /

noun

1. (in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population.

2. any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc.

---

apartheid British  

/ əˈpɑːthaɪt, -heɪt /

noun

1. (in South Africa) the official government policy of racial segregation; officially renounced in 1992

---

apartheid Cultural  

1. The racist policy (see racism) of South Africa that long denied blacks and other nonwhites civic, social, and economic equality with whites. It was dismantled during the 1990s. (See Nelson Mandela.)

---

Usage

What is Apartheid? Apartheid refers to the system of racist segregation and political and economic oppression enacted and upheld by white people in South Africa to deny Black and other nonwhite people equal rights.Apartheid became the official policy of South Africa in 1948 (though racist segregation policies had been employed before that). It was officially in place until the early 1990s, when it was begun to be dismantled after decades of resistance from Black and other nonwhite South Africans—notably Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko, among many others—and sanctions and pressure from the international community.Apartheid, spelled with a capital A, is most commonly used to refer specifically to South African Apartheid. The lowercase form, apartheid, is used in a more general way to refer to any system that segregates people based on certain characteristics, such as skin color, ethnicity, or caste.

Other Word Forms

• antiapartheid noun

Etymology

Origin of apartheid

First recorded in 1945–50; from Afrikaans apart apart + -heid -hood

Example Sentences

South Africa’s nuclear dismantlement during its transition from apartheid to democracy in the early 1990s offers a positive counterexample.

From The Wall Street Journal

Prior to 1994 and the end of South Africa's racist system of apartheid, the province now known as KwaZulu-Natal was split into two.

From BBC

He led the African National Congress in its struggle against apartheid - a system of legally enforced racism - and was released from prison in 1990.

From BBC

Relations between Washington and Pretoria are already at their lowest point since the end of apartheid rule in 1994.

From The Wall Street Journal

Makeba had been made stateless for her opposition to apartheid and after her marriage to Carmichael, who popularised the slogan "black power", her US visa was revoked.

From BBC

Related Words

• discrimination
• racism