white
/ˈwaɪt/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms whiter whitest whites whiting whited whight whyte whyght Wight
- adjective Bright and colourless; reflecting equal quantities of all frequencies of visible light. “Write in black ink on white paper.”
- adjective (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to Europeans or those of European descent, regardless if their skin has cool or warm undertones.
- adjective (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to Caucasians (people with white complexion and European ancestry).
- adjective (sometimes capitalized) By U.S. Census Bureau definition, of or relating to people hailing from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
- adjective (chiefly historical) Designated for use by Caucasians. “white drinking fountain”
- adjective Relatively light or pale in colour. “white wine”
- adjective Pale or pallid, as from fear, illness, etc.
- adjective (of a person or skin) Lacking coloration (tan) from ultraviolet light; not tanned.
- noun The color of snow or milk; the color of light containing equal amounts of all visible wavelengths.
- noun A person of European descent with light-colored skin.
- noun Any butterfly of the subfamily Pierinae in the family Pieridae.
- noun (countable and uncountable) White wine.
- noun (countable and uncountable) White coffee
- noun The albumen of bird eggs (egg white).
- noun (anatomy) The sclera, white of the eye.
- noun (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) The cue ball in cue games.
- verb (transitive) To make white; to whiten; to bleach.
- proper noun A common British and Irish surname transferred from the nickname.
- proper noun A minor city in Bartow County, Georgia; named for its first postmaster.
- proper noun A city in South Dakota; named for its first European settler.
Synonyms
fair pale abelungu ang moh Angrez balanda béké bule cac Caucasian cornstarch crusader cracker cumskin Eurangutan European farang firangi gringo gora gussuk White person whiteness Edward White Edward D. White Edward Douglas White Jr. Patrick White Patrick Victor Martindale White T. H. White Theodore Harold White Stanford White
Antonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English whit, hwit, from Old English hwīt, from Proto-West Germanic *hwīt, from Proto-Germanic *hwītaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweydós, a byform of *ḱweytós (“bright; shine”).
* West Frisian wyt
* Norwegian Bokmål hvit
* Norwegian Nynorsk kvit
* Lithuanian šviẽsti (“to gleam”), šviesa (“light”)
* Old Church Slavonic свѣтъ (světŭ, “light”), свѣтьлъ (světĭlŭ, “clear, bright”)
* Persian سفید (sefid, “white”), Persian سپید (sepid, “white”)
* Avestan 𐬯𐬞𐬀𐬉𐬙𐬀 (spaēta, “white”)
* Sanskrit श्वेत (śvetá, “white, bright”)
* As an English surname, from Middle English White, as a nickname for someone with white hair or pale complexion; in some cases from a personal name of the same meaning. See the modern adjective white.
* Also as an English surname, from Old English *wiht (“bend”), found only in placenames, a derivative of the verb wican (“to yield, bend”); compare Wight.
* As a Scottish Gaelic and Irish surname, used as a translation of several Gaelic names containing the element bán and geal, including Mac Giolla bháin (McElwain, Kilbane), Ó Gealagáin (Galligan), Bán (Bane), and Ó Banáin (Bannon).
* Also as a Scottish and Irish surname, an Anglicization of Irish de Faoite, itself from Anglo-Norman le White, le Whyte, from the same source as the English surname.
Capitalized due to this racial sense's connotation of (current or historical) European origin, so as to follow the capitalization rules for nationalities and ethne, known in former centuries as “races” (e.g., “the Chinese race”, “the English race”), and also, perhaps, as a way to explicitly distinguish it from the color sense, which is never capitalized outside proper nouns.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Reflecting to the eye all the rays of the spectrum combined; not tinted with any of the proper colors or their mixtures; having the color of pure snow; snowy; --the opposite of Ant: black or dark; as, white paper; a white skin. "Pearls white." Chaucer.
- adjective Destitute of color, as in the cheeks, or of the tinge of blood color; pale; pallid; as, white with fear.
- noun The color of pure snow; one of the natural colors of bodies, yet not strictly a color, but a composition of all colors; the opposite of black; whiteness. See the Note under Color, n., 1.
- noun Something having the color of snow; something white, or nearly so; as, the white of the eye.
Etymology [OE. whit, AS. hw; akin to OFries. and OS. hwit, D. wit, G. weiss, OHG. wiz, hwiz, Icel. hvitr, Sw. hvit, Dan. hvid, Goth. hweits, Lith. szveisti, to make bright, Russ. sviet' light, Skr. white, to be bright. Wheat, Whitsunday.]
Etymology [AS. hwitan.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “white”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details