blackamoor
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈblæk.əˌmɔː(ɹ)/
ipa: /ˈblæk.əˌmʊə(ɹ)/
ipa: /ˈblæk.əˌmɔɹ/
ipa: /ˈblæk.əˌmʊɹ/
Forms: form: blackamoors
form: blackamore
form: blackemore
form: blackemoor
form: blackymore
form: blackmoor
Etymology: From earlier blackmoor + -a-. By surface analysis, black + -a- + Moor.
Senses: examples: text: Argent, three blackamoors’ heads couped sable, capped or, fretty gules.
text: `Well, Job,' I said, `perhaps it would be as well. There are lots of blankets there, only be careful to keep out of the moon, or it may turn your head or blind you.' `Lord, sir! I don't think it would much matter if it did; it is that turned already with the sight of these blackamoors and their filthy, thieving ways.'
ref: 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
text: Go venture shipwreck on the sullen coasts
Where blackamoors make captive Christian men ...
ref: 1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part II:
text: "What!" exclaimed the Prince, "the music is by the blackamoor (a black Moor). Well, my fine blackamoor, henceforth thou art in my service."
ref: 2003, Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn, Beethoven: Revealing His True Identity:
text: What had Pringle done to merit such a severe penalty? He had said to Adusei during a criminal trial, "How's the blackamoor?". The Tribunal found that this was offensive, which clearly it was, and constituted an act of racial discrimination.
ref: 2002, Barbara Hewson, An English Bar Disciplinary Tribunal went over the top when dealing with a racial harassment case.:
text: Gage noted the clothing of the slaves of the Spanish nobles, and silk was common to them. "The gentlemen have their train of blackamoor slaves, some a dozen, some half a dozen, waiting on them, in brave and gallant liveries, heavy with gold and silver lace, with silk stockings on their black legs, and roses on their feet, and swords by their sides."
ref: 1958, Maurice W. Connell, The Prophet Said Silk (http://www.shields-research.org/Scriptures/BoM/SILK02.html), citing Thomas Gage's Travels in the New World, J. Eric S. Thompson (editor), page 73
topics: government
heraldry
hobbies
lifestyle
monarchy
nobility
politics
glosses: A person with dark black skin, especially one from north Africa.
examples: text: 1893, Annotation to The Diary of Samuel Pepys by "Mary", http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/08/10/index.php citing Restoration London, Liza Picard, pages 178-179.
In 1596 Elizabeth I had already decreed that all "blackamoors" should be sent back to Spain or Portugal as they were disturbing local labour markets. It became very fashionable for the wealthy to have "blackamoor" page boys and personal servants, as their complexions set off the pale-skinned beauty of the women of the family.
text: She seems to have been a serious girl, but she remembered her father's characterization of her as his "Little blackamoor."
ref: 1999, Doug Davis, Lost Girl, archived from the original on 04 Feb 2005:
glosses: A black slave or servant, and hence any slave, servant, inferior, or child.
Synonyms: black
Negro
Derived terms: wash a blackamoor white