paleface

American  

[peyl-feys] / ˈpeɪlˌfeɪs /

noun

1. Slang. a white person, as distinguished from a North American Indian.

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paleface British  

/ ˈpeɪlˌfeɪs /

noun

1. a derogatory term for a White person, said to have been used by North American Indians

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Etymology

Origin of paleface

1815–25; pale ¹ + face, expression attributed to North American Indians

Example Sentences

Many of the writers Winters most admired wound up in Rahv’s paleface pantheon—Hawthorne, Melville, Emily Dickinson, Henry James.

From The New Yorker • Mar. 11, 2019

But centuries before paleface cartographers gave the peak that name, Alaskan Indians, Aleuts and Eskimos called it by another: Denali, or "the Great One" in the Athabascan Indian dialect.

From Time Magazine Archive

François, bustling and important, announced a messenger from “our brothers, the Shawnees, who has come for this paleface, a runaway.”

From Rodney, the Ranger With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield by Goss, John

He has loved her too, in days gone by, ere he looked upon the golden-haired paleface.

From Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco by Tilney, F.C.

There we came, for the first time, face to face with the American Indian, the sole owner of this vast and fertile continent before the paleface landed to dispute his right of ownership.

From Dangers of the Trail in 1865 A Narrative of Actual Events by Patterson, H. DeF.