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white man

white man

383 1.6
A man with light skin, often from Europe
  • noun
translation icon : hombre blanco
  • 300 years ago, the white man moved across the North American Continent.
  • percent of white men
  • older white men
  • white men and women

Why would I just bring an old white man to work?

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Examples

  • President Kennedy was a white man.

  • These are more white men and women with them.

  • Why would I just bring an old white man to work?

  • And there are studies that show white men think that there is.

  • Or should this read, "All white men are created equal"?

  • Is the era of white men is over?

  • A couple I know stands on their porch: a white man and a black woman.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • The average lifespan of white men has gone down.

  • In the soil of America, the white man planted the seeds of hate.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • As a white man, he often reflects on the advantages he has experienced in society.

Synonyms

White person
vswhite man
16 4.0

A person with light skin whose family comes from Europe

refers only to one gender instead of to people of any gender
Caucasian male
vswhite man
7 3.6

A man or boy with light skin that people call white

is a common everyday description rather than a technical demographic label

Surface Forms

white man singular
white men plural

Morphology

white + man

The meaning 'a man who belongs to the White (Caucasian) ethnic group' is directly and compositionally derived from 'white' (light-skinned / of European descent) modifying 'man' (an adult male). This simple adjective + noun structure is cross-linguistically common and predictable, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand the MWE.

Etymology

White man started as a simple description: a white 'light-skinned' man. People used the word 'white' to group people who had light skin, so today white man means a man from that group.