Red Indian
3
9.9
- noun
- Slur
- It is now recognized that Red Indian is an offensive and outdated term.
Examples
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The term Red Indian is considered offensive today.
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Some literature from the 19th century refers to Native Americans as Red Indians.
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The old book used the term Red Indian to describe people who lived in America before colonization.
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Many Red Indians have fought to reclaim their rights.
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It is now recognized that Red Indian is an offensive and outdated term.
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Some literature from the 19th century refers to Native Americans as Red Indians.
-
The old book used the term Red Indian to describe people who lived in America before colonization.
Synonyms
93
3.4
A person whose family lived in North or South America before Europeans arrived
Surface Forms
Morphology
Red + Indian
A B1 learner who knows 'red' (the colour) and 'Indian' (referring to Indigenous American peoples) can infer that 'Red Indian' labels people by skin colour, so the basic referential meaning is compositionally recoverable. However, the expression is a historically rooted, offensive exonym with pragmatic and cultural connotations (pejorative/archaic usage) that are not predictable from the words alone, so full interpretation requires extra sociocultural knowledge.
Etymology
Red Indian came from early European writers who used the color word red for the skin tone or body paint they saw, and who called the people Indian because they thought they were in the Indies. Because it labels people by color, the phrase is now seen as 'offensive' and 'outdated', so people now use 'Native American' or 'Indigenous' instead.