Chinaman
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈt͡ʃaɪnəmən/
ipa: [ˈt͡ʃʰaɪ̯nəmɪ̽n]
ipa: /ˈt͡ʃɑenəmən/
ipa: /ˈt͡ʃainaman/
Forms: form: Chinamen
Etymology: From Chinese Pidgin English. Calque of Chinese 中國人 /中国人 (Zhōngguórén) ("China + -man"). Applied also to ships by analogy with East Indiaman.
Senses: examples: text: A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hands he needs no support from anybody; white men often complain of want of work, but a Chinaman offers no such complaint; he always manages to find something to do.[…]Any white man can swear a Chinaman’s life away in the courts, but no Chinaman can testify against a white man.
ref: 1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “”, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC, page 391:
text: Another favorite pastime of the Highbinder who is usually a loafer, is to levy blackmail on a wealthy Chinaman.[…]If it were not that the Chinamen kill only men of their own race and let alone all other men, the citizens of San Francisco would have sacked and burned Chinatown.
ref: 1906, Hubert D. Russell, editor, Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror, 1906, published 2003, page 251:
text: On the flat behind the mill, dawn-rising Chinamen shogged with nimble bare feet under their yoke-linked watering-cans. These busy brethren, meeting sometimes on the same narrow track, would pause, ant-like, seemingly to dumbly regard one another and their burdens, then, still ant-like, pass silently to their work.
ref: 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 147:
text: "It is my fly-trap!" shrieked the Chinaman. "And I am the god of destruction!"
ref: 1913, Sax Rohmer, chapter 25, in The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu:
text: The carts rattle by, swinging from side to side; two Chinamen lollop along under their wooden yokes with the straining vegetable baskets—their pigtails and blue blouses fly out in the wind.
ref: 1920 August 27, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Wind Blows”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 137:
text: 1941, George Ade, Stories of the Streets and of the Town: From the Chicago Record 1893 - 1900, reprinted as 2003, Stories of Chicago, page 163,
In Clark Street, where all the nations of the earth dwell together in harmony, one has but to go downstairs to find a Chinaman. And when found he is washing.
text: America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
ref: 1956, Allen Ginsberg, “America”, in Howl and Other Poems (Pocket Poets Series), City Lights Books, →OCLC, page 33:
text: Diner Employee: How long you been standing there, you freak?
Diner Customer: What are you, a Chinaman?
Xavier (Vernon Chatman): I wish I knew myself.
Diner Employee: We don't cotton to strange Chinamen with no sense of self who stand secretly by for indeterminate amounts of time. Gonna put you in a world of hurt.
ref: 2007, Xavier: Renegade Angel, season 1, episode 6:
synonyms: Chinaperson
glosses: A Chinese person, or person of Chinese descent.
glosses: A sailing ship of the 18th and 19th centuries engaged in the Old China Trade
examples: text: Chinaman half in and half out of the door. Codeine and goof balls, and complete discouragement.
ref: 1952 November 5, William S. Burroughs, “To Allen Ginsberg”, in Oliver Harris, editor, The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1945–1959, New York: Penguin, published 1993, →ISBN, page 140:
glosses: Addiction from a narcotic, especially heroin.
Hyponyms: word: Chinawoman
Coordinate terms: Chinawoman
Derived terms: Chinaman's chance
Chinaman's chance in hell
Chinaman's Peak
Chinaperson
Chinawoman
John Chinaman
Johnny Chinaman
must have killed a Chinaman