… each ball containing 1.366 ounces of pure silver, would cost $204.90 compared with $5.29 at the white metal's pre-1967 price of 1.29 … —William L. Silber
2
a
or less commonly White: of or relating to any of various population groups considered as having light pigmentation of the skin
Note:
The meaning of white as it relates to population groups has historically been fluid, with people of particular ancestries being excluded for a time before being included, and vice versa. The category has also often functioned as a grouping into which people who are not designated as belonging in some other category are placed. Specific parameters are, however, sometimes set, as in the U.S. 2020 Census, which stipulates that "the category of 'White' includes all individuals who identify with one or more nationalities or ethnic groups originating in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa."
b
or less commonly White: of or relating to white people or their culture
books from the canon of white literature
c
dated, offensive: marked by upright fairness
That's mighty white of you
Note:
This use of white is sometimes used ironically.
: conservative or reactionary in political outlook and action
b
: instigated or carried out by reactionary forces as a counterrevolutionary measure
a white terror
7
: of, relating to, or constituting a musical tone quality characterized by a controlled pure sound, a lack of warmth and color, and a lack of resonance
8
: consisting of a wide range of frequencies—used of light, sound, and electromagnetic radiation
: the achromatic object color of greatest lightness characteristically perceived to belong to objects that reflect diffusely nearly all incident energy throughout the visible spectrum
2
: one that is or approaches white in color: such as
: a white-colored product (such as flour)—usually used in plural
(2)
: any of numerous butterflies (subfamily Pierinae of the family Pieridae) that usually have the ground color of the wings white and are related to the sulphur butterflies
e
whites plural: teeth—used in the phrase pearly whites
3
: a person belonging to any of various population groups considered as having light pigmentation of the skin
Note:
This meaning of the noun white is usually used in the plural form and typically in contexts about population groups, as in "a policy supported by many rural whites."
4
a
: a white or light-colored part of something: such as
(1)
: a mass of albuminous material surrounding the yolk of an egg
(2)
: the white part of the eyeball
(3)
: the light-colored pieces in a 2-player board game
also: the player by whom these are played
(4)
: the area of a page unmarked by writing, printing, or illustration
b(1)
archaic: a white target
(2)
: the fifth or outermost circle of an archery target
Adjective
He was wearing white sneakers.
He had a long, white beard.
Her lips were white with fear.
He turned white when he heard the news.
He came from a white middle-class background.
His mother is Hispanic and his father is white. Noun
the whites of his eyes
The cake recipe calls for four egg whites.
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Adjective
More white people claim the credit than Black people certainly.—Tax Notes Staff, Forbes, 14 Feb. 2023 Black people make up about 14% of the U.S. population but are three times more likely to face hunger than white people, according to the Agriculture Department.—Maya Eaglin, NBC News, 11 Feb. 2023
Noun
Warm white bulbs have 2,700-3,000 Ks (Kelvins), while the soft whites are more in the 3,500-K range and the cool whites in the 5,000-K range.—Inga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 Mar. 2025 This often results in overcooked yolks or undercooked whites when conventional methods are used.—Ars Technica, 28 Feb. 2025
Verb
Choose from croaker, flounder, perch or whiting on a bun with tartar sauce.—Heidi Finley, Charlotte Observer, 4 Mar. 2025 In Family Portrait, a John Baldessari–esque collage from 1986, her parents’ faces are whited out, while the young DeGenevieve’s head floats above, estranged in its own rogue orbit.—Jeremy Lybarger, Artforum, 1 Feb. 2025 See All Example Sentences for white
Word History
Etymology
Adjective
Middle English whit, white, going back to Old English hwīt "white, bright, shining," going back to Germanic *hwīta- (whence also Old Frisian hwīt, hwītt, wīt, wit "white," Old Saxon hwīt "white, bright," Middle Dutch wit, witt "white," Middle Low German wit, witte, Old High German hwīz, wīz, Old Icelandic hvítr, Gothic ƕeits), probably going back to Indo-European *ḱu̯ei̯t-nó-, whence also, with zero-grade, Sanskrit śvítnaḥ "whitish," and without suffixal -n- Sanskrit áśvait "(it) brightened," śvitāná- "brightening," śvetáḥ "white, bright," Avestan spaēta-, Old Church Slavic světŭ "light, radiance," svěštǫ, světiti "to shine, give light," Lithuanian šviečiù, šviẽsti "to shine, shine a light (for)"; (sense 2c) from the stereotypical and racist association of good character with northern European descent; (sense 6) from the association of white with royalist and counterrevolutionary causes, perhaps originally from its use in the cockades and flags of the Bourbon dynasty in France and the Jacobites in Britain
Note:
Though this etymology for Germanic *hwīta- seems likely in broad outline, the details are problematic. The *-t- in the Indo-European etymon would lead one to expect a voiced or voiceless fricative in Germanic rather than a voiceless stop. The explanation for this lies in the assumption that the cluster *-tn- after the accent in the presumed pre-form *ḱu̯ei̯t-nó- produced a geminate t (Kluge's Law), which the individual Germanic languages have generally shortened after a long vowel (though this is arguably not the case for Old High German). The occasional tt spellings in Old Frisian, Middle Dutch and Middle Low German may be taken as traces of gemination. (E. Seebold, however, believes these forms are late and secondary, and points to the nominative neuter form hwitt in the Cotton Caligula manuscript of the Heliand—see Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache.) Their descendants in the modern languages in part also show a short vowel, giving rise to yet another assumption, that these forms go back to a zero-grade adjective *ḱu̯it-nó-. The older literature on *hwīta- simply accepts that its Indo-European predecessor was *ḱu̯ei̯d-, with -d- being a different root extension than the -t- evident in the Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic words. See discussion and references in R. Lühr, Expressivität und Lautgesetz im Germanischen (Heidelberg, 1988), pp. 263-64; and in G. Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Brill, 2013), p. 267.
Noun
Middle English whit, white, going back to Old English hwīt, noun derivative of hwītwhite entry 1
Verb
Middle English whiten, going back to Old English hwītan, hwītian, derivative of hwītwhite entry 1
First Known Use
Adjective
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Noun
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 4a
Verb
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above
Time Traveler
The first known use of white was
before the 12th century
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