Deep South

American  

noun

1. the southeastern part of the U.S., including especially South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

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Deep South British  

noun

1. the SE part of the US, esp South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana

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Deep South Cultural  

1. The southernmost tier of states in the South: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Before the Civil War, these states were centers of cotton production and slavery. All of them seceded from the United States before the firing on Fort Sumter. They are sometimes distinguished from the states of the Upper South (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas), which contained proportionately fewer slaves prior to the Civil War and which seceded only after the firing on Fort Sumter.

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Example Sentences

"Sinners," the tale of gangster twins returning home to a supernatural and segregated Deep South in the 1930s, has already made Academy Awards history with its whopping 16 nominations.

From Barron's • Mar. 15, 2026

Eli Whitney’s cotton gin expanded slavery across the Deep South.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025

Shares of the electric power provider, which serves four states in the Deep South, have gained 27% this year.

From Barron's • Oct. 3, 2025

On New Year’s Day of 1863, his final Emancipation Proclamation not only promised freedom to millions of slaves in the Deep South but also urged Black Americans to join the Union Army.

From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 4, 2025

Enoch didn’t want to move back to the Deep South, but the school promised to let him both teach and coach.

From "The Parker Inheritance" by Varian Johnson