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• African American
  African American

  noun

  an American with Black African ancestry.
• African-American
  African-American

  noun

  an American of African descent

African American

American  

[af-ri-kuhn uh-mer-i-kuhn] / ˈæf rɪ kən əˈmɛr ɪ kən /

Sometimes Aframerican

noun

1. an American with Black African ancestry.

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adjective

1. of or relating to African Americans.

2. African-American, occurring between the United States and Africa.

   Several international charities are promoting African-American cooperation in expanding access to safe drinking water.

African-American British  

noun

1. an American of African descent

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adjective

1. of or relating to Americans of African descent

Usage

During the 1980s, many Americans sought to display pride in their immigrant origins. Linguistically, this brought about a brief period of short-form hyphenated designations, like Italo-Americans and Greco-Americans. The Black community also embraced the existing term Afro-American, a label that emphasized geographical or ethnic heritage over skin color. The related label, African American, also saw an increase in use among activists in the 1970s and 1980s. African American was even more widely adopted in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s after high-profile Black leaders advocated for it, arguing, as Jesse Jackson did, that the term brought “proper historical context” and had “cultural integrity.” See Black ¹.

This is the currently preferred term in the US for people of African ancestry

Etymology

Origin of African American

An Americanism dating back to 1780–90

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

African American African-American

To market their goods, they turned to an informal network of African American artists, staging pop-up exhibitions in people’s homes and in other impromptu locations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026

Montgomery, the state capital, is over 60% African American.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

The crew will be rounded out by African American Andre Douglas and US astronaut of Salvadoran descent Frank Rubio.

From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026

Many projects, like the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and African American history museum, began as the deferred dreams of ordinary citizens.

From Slate ● May 18, 2026

She also used to be an astronaut, one of the few female African American ones.

From "Shine!" by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein

“We’re doing very well with the Black jobs, African-American jobs,” he said.

From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026

"For an African-American that started playing soccer at 12 years of age, to make it to not just the national team but the World Cup and start - you can't even write that," he says.

From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026

All subjects were born to African-American and Latino mothers and had detectable levels of CPF in their umbilical cord blood.

From Science Daily ● May 21, 2026

For African-American women whose symptoms start earlier, last longer and are more severe, hormone therapy usage is far lower.

From MarketWatch ● May 12, 2026

In 1873, a group of African-American students from Fisk University in Nashville brought the spiritual to Europe.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall