color barrier
3
5.9
- noun
- /ˈkʌlər ˈbɛriər/
- Offensive
:
barrera racial
- Employers not blinded by prejudice could not break the color barrier without risking a strike by their white workers and ostracism by their white neighbors.
- break the color barrier
- Baseball color barrier
- Robinson broke the color barrier
Examples
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That's right, Jackie broke the MLB color barrier in 1947, and the last team to integrate (the Red Sox) had done so in 1959 with Pumpsie Green.
Blog text (33) -
The collapse of the color barrier in professional baseball was approaching.
Academic text (1994) -
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball because he was great at what he was paid to do.
Blog text (7) -
When Branch Rickey broke baseball's color barrier, he knew he had to have the right man to pull it off.
Blog text (12) -
It would take another decade for a black player to break the color barrier in the NHL, the last of the four major professional sports leagues to open its doors to black players.
Blog text (28) -
But like Bud Kelly and many other black players before him, Carnegie, despite his tremendous hockey skills, was denied an NHL career because of an unwritten color barrier.
Blog text (28) -
But the fact that he's broken through the color barrier as a Democrat with the name Barack Hussein Obama (after 9/11) is not a policy change; it's a societal change.
Blog text (25) -
In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and became the first Black player in Major League Baseball.
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Only a few athletes have managed to break the color barrier in sports, paving the way for future generations.
-
She inspired many by breaking the color barrier in the fashion industry as one of the first Black models on the runway.
Synonyms
84
6.1
Authorities keep people apart by race or religion, often with different facilities
6
6.5
Keeping people apart because of their race, for example in schools or public places
3
7.9
A barrier that keeps Black people from taking part equally with white people
A system that keeps people of different races apart and often denies rights to Black people
Antonyms
Belief that people of different races should be treated equally and work together
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning — an obstacle based on people’s skin color or race — is directly derivable from 'color' (here used to indicate race/skin color) + 'barrier' (an obstacle). Although the full socio-political nuance (e.g., legal segregation) may require context, the compositional logic is straightforward and typically inferable by a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
The phrase color barrier comes from the image of a wall or fence that separates people by color, meaning skin color, and keeps some people from joining the same places or teams. When someone 'breaks' that wall they join the group, so the phrase now means a rule or practice that kept people apart by race.