buckra
buckra noun: a white person.
Noun
buckra (plural buckras)
- A white person.
- As he was going to the stake, he turned about, and addressed himself to Mr. Jeffreys […] and said, “Buckra, you see me now, but to-morrow I shall be like that,” kicking up the dust with his foot.1791, An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years 1790, and 1791, on the Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, London...
- To show the deadly hatred they bore the white people, Thicknesse, who was the first in the town, and the person left with them as a hostage, related, that having taken up his abode with Quao, his children could not refrain striking their pointed fingers at his breast as they would have done knives...1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 3, p. 73
- A poor white person.
- “Dunno whether he been a buckra or not,” responded, doggedly, my Cerberus in uniform; “but I’s bound to keep him here till de corporal ob de guard come.”1865 January, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Leaves from an Officer’s Journal”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 15, number 87, page 69
- What I think of Abe Lincoln? I think he was a poor buckra white man, to de likes of me.1941, Ed Barber, interview published in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Washington: Library of Congress, Volume 14: South Carolina...
Adjective
buckra (not comparable)
- White.
- a buckra yam
Examples of buckra in a sentence
- Oh the Buckra people who keep slaves think that black people are like cattle, without natural affection.1831, Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, London: F. Westley and A.H. Davis, page 9:
- They kick me in the face, beat me with the baton, whip me in me balls, beat me with a cat o’ nine like them name buckra massa […]2014, Marlon James, “General Rockers: December 2, 1976”, in A Brief History of Seven Killings, London: Oneworld:
Forms of buckra
| plural | buckras |
|---|---|
| alternative form | backra |
| alternative form | bakra |
| alternative form | buccra |
Origin of buckra
From Efik mbakara or Ibibio mbakara; compare Gullah buckra (“white person”). Doublet of bakkra.
Questions about buckra
- What does buckra mean?
- Buckra means a white person.
- How do you use buckra in a sentence?
- Oh the Buckra people who keep slaves think that black people are like cattle, without natural affection.
- What part of speech is buckra?
- Buckra can be a noun or an adjective.
- What is the plural of buckra?
- The plural of buckra is buckras.
Words near buckra in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: buckra (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “buckra.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buckra. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.