■ noun offensive a black person.
Origin
C17 (as adjective): from earlier neger , from Fr. nègre , from Sp. negro (see Negro ).
Usage
The word ~ has long had strong offensive connotations and is today one of the most racially offensive words in the language. However, it has acquired a new strand of use in recent years: it is sometimes used by black people as a mildly disparaging way of referring to other black people, in much the same way that queer has been adopted by some gay people as a term of self-reference, acceptable only when used by those within the community.