lightskin
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]lightskin (plural lightskins)
- A black person who has relatively light-coloured skin.
- Synonym: fair-skinned
- Antonym: darkskin
- 1941, W. Lloyd Warner, Buford H. Junker, Walter A. Adams, “Lightskin Women”, in Color and Human Nature: Negro Personality Development in a Northern City, Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, page 193:
- A man who is getting ahead tends to seek a lighter mate, and because “a good man is hard to find,” it would be difficult for a lightskin girl consistently to reject darker people. A darker man who offers security, through social position and other advantages, may well be preferred to a lightskin man of little enterprise.
Usage notes
[edit]Sometimes used in a derogatory sense to describe a black person (of any skin colour) who acts in an effeminate manner.