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

Frye said this was a legacy of colonialism and apartheid.

From Barron's

The club eventually allowed women and Black people to join as the country transitioned away from apartheid.

From The Wall Street Journal

Home to one in 10 South Africans, the city is still battling to overcome apartheid’s impact, which led to urban flight and created vastly disparate worlds crammed into 635 sprawling square miles.

From New York Times

South Africa's struggles with its education system are longstanding, with significant inequality between black and white students a consequence of the segregation of children under apartheid.

From BBC

“But we also had our own apartheid that took place in San Francisco through urban renewal.”

From New York Times

Related Words

• discrimination
• racism