Word.ws English Dictionary

oreo

/ˈɔɹioʊ/

oreo is the alternative letter-case form of Oreo.

Noun capitalized: Oreo

Oreo (plural Oreos)

  1. (foods) A cookie made of two wafers joined with a sugary filling, particularly a Nabisco cookie with two alkalized cocoa-powder wafers around a white creme filling.
    • The Oreo is really an antidepressant drug disguised as a cookie. You lost your job? Eat a bag of Oreos[…] There are two ways to eat Oreos. Kids like to pull the chocolate wafers apart and eat the sweat, creamy middle first. Adults dunk them in milk.1984 December, Michael Norman, “The Junk Food Hall of Fame”, in Cincinnati Magazine, page 67
    • While Oreo cream may not appear to possess fluid-like properties, it is considered a "yield stress fluid""—a soft solid when unperturbed that can start to flow under enough stress[…] Curious as to whether other had explored the connection between Oreos and rheology, Owens found mention of a 2016...2022 April 19, Jennifer Chu, “MIT Engineers Introduce the Oreometer”, in MIT News
    Synonyms:
    Oreo cookie
  2. (US, derogatory, ethnic, slur) A black person who has overly assimilated into white culture, a black race traitor.
    • She's a pure Oreo. You know, like the cookie, black outside and white inside.1971, Iceberg Slim, The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim, Holloway House
    • Growing up in white suburbs and attending elite schools and institutions of higher learning, black American prince and princesses are immersed in Anglo (often WASP) culture and emerge with modes of speech, behavior and grooming that brand them as "Oreos," black on the outside and white in the...[2002 November 26, Adrienne Crew, “BAP like me”, in Salon, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2007
    Synonyms:
    Uncle Tom

Synonyms of oreo

Forms of oreo

pluraloreos
pluralOreos

Origin of oreo

Genericized use of Oreo, q.v.

Brand name of unknown origin, trademarked by National Biscuit Company on 14 March 1912. See the Etymology section of Wikipedia's Oreo article for various theories. In reference to well-assimilated black people, derived from the slur that they are "black on the outside, white on the inside".

Phrases with oreo

Questions about oreo

What does oreo mean?
Oreo means a cookie made of two wafers joined with a sugary filling, particularly a Nabisco cookie with two alkalized cocoa-powder wafers around a white creme filling.
What is oreo the alternative letter-case form of?
Oreo is the alternative letter-case form of Oreo.
What part of speech is oreo?
Oreo is a noun.
How do you pronounce oreo?
Oreo is pronounced /ˈɔɹioʊ/ (US).
What is the plural of oreo?
The plural of oreo is oreos.

Words near oreo in the dictionary

  1. oreng
  2. orenges
  3. Orenoco
  4. Orense
  5. Orenthal
  6. oreo
  7. Oreo cookie
  8. Oreo cookies
  9. Oreo Namaz
  10. oreochromine
  11. oreochromines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oreo (page history and authors); Oreo (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-Oreo.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Oreo.wav.

Cite this entry: “oreo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oreo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.