shvartze

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Yiddish שוואַרצע (shvartse), feminine and plural form of שוואַרץ (shvarts, black). The feminine form may have been generalized from the use of the term to refer to a female domestic worker. Doublet of swart.

Noun

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shvartze (plural shvartze or shvartzes)

  1. (chiefly US, offensive, ethnic slur) A person of sub-Saharan African descent; a black person.
    • 1969, Philip Roth, “The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met”, in Portnoy’s Complaint[1], New York: Vintage, published 1994, page 12:
      [] she irons better even than the schvartze,
    • 1975, Robert Greenfield, The Spiritual Supermarket, New York: Saturday Review Press / E. P. Dutton & Co., p. 6,[2]
      From the rabbi to the “shvartze,” the black man who turned on the synagogue’s lights on Saturdays, he was liked.
    • 1988, Leon Uris, Mitla Pass, New York: Doubleday, Part 3, “Baltimore 1902-1913,” p. 270,[3]
      [] they were able to afford a full-time shvartze to keep the house.
    • 1997, Mordecai Richler, “The Second Mrs. Panofsky”, in Barney’s Version[4], New York: Knopf, Part 10, p. 213:
      Jesse Jackson cracks a joke about Hymietown and everybody has a fit, but I’ve heard you call them shvartzes, and I’ll bet had your daughter married one you wouldn’t have cracked open a bottle of champagne.
    • 2006, Melissa Fay Greene, chapter 6, in The Temple Bombing[5], Cambridge: MA: Da Capo, page 139:
      ‘We don’t have enough problems among the Jews, he has to go take on the problems of the shvartze?’

Adjective

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shvartze (not comparable)

  1. (chiefly US, offensive, ethnic slur) Of sub-Saharan African descent; of or pertaining to people of sub-Saharan African descent; black.
    • 1983, Richard Price, The Breaks[6], New York: Simon & Schuster, Part 1, p. 98:
      There was a shvartze wedding next door and something else too . . . some anniversary party.
    • 2012, Steve Stern, “The Tale of a Kite” in The Book of Mischief, Minneapolis: Graywolf Fress, p. 9,[7]
      Ordinarily Boss Crump and his entourage [] like to tour the individual shops, receiving the tributes his shvartze valet shleps out to a waiting limousine.