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• native son
  native son

  noun

  a person born in a particular place.
• Native Son
  Native Son

  noun

  a novel (1940) by Richard Wright.

native son

¹ American  

noun

1. a person born in a particular place.

   The delegation from Iowa nominated a native son.

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Native Son ² American  

noun

1. a novel (1940) by Richard Wright.

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Native Son Cultural  

1. (1940) A novel by African-American author Richard Wright about a young black man whose life is destroyed by poverty and racism.

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Etymology

Origin of native son

An Americanism dating back to 1825–35

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

native son Native Son

The affluent coastal community gave its native son 51% of the vote in the June 2 primary, which would have been enough to win the job outright.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026

A native son of Southport, England, Fleetwood would even sneak onto the grounds as a kid.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

In Puerto Rico, a US territory since 1898, there was nothing but pride for the island's native son.

From Barron's ● Feb. 9, 2026

Angeli-Chansley was a true native son of the district, he told me, though its exact confines have changed somewhat during his near four decades of life because of redistricting.

From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2024

The excitement was in part due to Bush’s being something of a native son.

From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger

And the great James Baldwin in his classic 1955 analysis of race in America, Notes of a Native Son, wrote:

From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2025

He’s since covered pop culture for dozens of outlets and in 2016 founded Native Son, an advocacy group focused on uplifting and connecting queer Black men.

From New York Times ● Sep. 16, 2022

Wright was hurt when Baldwin declared his independence from the protest tradition by denouncing Native Son.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 26, 2019

Among the group was KiKi Layne, who has gone on to star in the movies If Beale Street Could Talk and Native Son.

From Slate ● Apr. 23, 2019

Now, until this moment I did not stop to think very much about the plot of Native Son.

From "Native Son" by Richard Wright