List of ethnic group names used as insults

This is a list of nouns, used for name-calling in the English language, whose etymology goes back to the name of some, often historical or archaic, ethnic or religious group, but whose current meaning has lost that connotation and does not imply any actual ethnicity or religion.

Several of these terms are derogatory or insulting. The entries on this list should not be confused with "ethnic slurs" referring to a person's actual ethnicity, which have a separate list.

; Apache: a Parisian gangster or thug (from the collective name Apache for several nations of Native Americans) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apache (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;Bohemian: a person with an unconventional artistic lifestyle (originally meaning an inhabitant of Bohemia; the secondary meaning may derive from an erroneous idea that the Roma people originate from Bohemia) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bohemian (accessed: July 5, 2007).] Not used as an insult in most circumstances. ;Bugger: Synonymous with sodomite. From Middle English "bougre, heretic," from Anglo-French "bugre," from Medieval Latin "Bulgarus," literally, "Bulgarian;" (from the association of Bulgaria with the Bogomils, who were accused of sodomy). [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bugger (accessed: July 5, 2007).] ;Cannibal: used descriptively for any human consuming human flesh (originally meaning Carib, erroneously thought to be cannibals) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cannibal (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;Cohee : (U.S.) originally (mid-18th century) -- a Scots-Irish settler into the Virginia Piedmont; later (late 18th century) -- a term for backwoodsman; hick, or most severely "poor white trash", especially on the frontier or in the Appalachian area; still later (post Civil War) -- a self-referential indicating an independent backwoods small farmer in the Virginia/Carolina/Tennessee/Kentucky area.James Kirke Paulding’s "Letters from the South, written during an Excursion in the Summer of 1816". NY: James Eastburn (1817).] Elizabeth A. Perkins & John Dabney Shane's "Border Life: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley" University of North Carolina Press (May 1998), ISBN 0807824003 .]

;Cretin: a person of severely diminished mental capabilities (possibly from Alpine French dialect, originally meaning Christian) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cretin (accessed: July 5, 2007).] ;Goth: a crude person, lacking culture or refinement; a somewhat obsolete term, in this sense not in reference to the Goth subculture (from the East Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in 410) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/goth (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;Gyp: a swindler; a racehorse owner; in Britain also a male servant at a college — from Gypsy, which in turn is derived from Egyptian) [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gyp] [http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Whats_in_a_name/default.cfm?id=21]

;Hun: barbarous or destructive person; was also in used in World War I as an ethnic slur for the Germans (from the confederation of Eurasian tribes that first appeared in Europe in the 4th century, leading to mass migrations of Germanic tribes westward, and established an empire extending into Europe in the 5th century, partially financed by the plundering of wealthy Roman cities) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hun (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;To Jew: recorded by Webster's Dictionary since at least 19th century in the meanings to cheat, to defraud, to swindle [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=jQgDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA137&dq=%22to+jew%22] ]

;Philistine: a person who does not care about artistic and cultural values (from a people that inhabited Canaan when, according to the biblical account, the Israelites arrived) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/philistine (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;Pygmy: a person of diminished stature (possibly in reference to certain hunter-gatherer peoples, such as the Mbuti of Central Africa, sometimes grouped together under the term Pygmies, but that designation actually stems from the original meaning of pygmy as an unusually small person) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pygmy (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;Tartar: a violently ferocious person, a rather obsolete term (from the Mongolian nomadic tribe of Tatars that invaded Europe in the 13th century, later generalized to any Mongolian or Turkic invaders of Europe) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tartar (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;Thug: a gangster or ruffian ready to use excessive violence (from the religious Indian Thuggee cult, alleged to practice robbery and murder by strangulation) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thug (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

;Tuckahoe : (U.S.) originally (mid-18th century) - a member of the aristocratic and politically powerful class of plantation owners in tidewater Virginia in the mid-18th century (i.e. the "first families of Virginia"); later - anyone from low-country Virginia who was lazy, aristocratic, ineffectual, prideful, effete, etc.; still later (post Civil War) - a self-referential used by anyone whose cultural heritage included wealth, slave-holding, and a tidewater Virginia/Carolina lineage.

;Vandal: a person who willfully and maliciously destroys property (from the East Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in 455) [Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vandal (accessed: July 5, 2007).]

References

ee also

*Lists of disparaging terms