Jim Crow

Informal traditional discrimination against or segregation of blacks, esp. in the U.S.

Origin: name of an early black minstrel song

Related Forms:

See Jim Crow in American Heritage Dictionary 4

or jim crow

noun
The systematic practice of discriminating against and segregating Black people, especially as practiced in the American South from the end of Reconstruction to the mid-20th century.
adjective
  1. Upholding or practicing discrimination against and segregation of Black people: Jim Crow laws; a Jim Crow town.
  2. Reserved or set aside for a racial or ethnic group that is to be discriminated against: “I told them I wouldn't take a Jim Crow job” (Ralph Bunche).

Origin:

Origin: From obsolete Jim Crow, derogatory name for a Black person

Origin: , ultimately from the title of a 19th-century minstrel song

.

Related Forms:

  • Jimˈ-Crowˈism (jĭmˈkrōˈĭzˌəm) noun

Learn more about Jim Crow

link/cite print suggestion box