quadroon

/kwɑːˈdɹuːn/

quadroon noun: a person considered three-fourths white, having one non-white grandparent.

Noun

quadroon (plural quadroons)

(dated, historical) A person considered three-fourths white, having one non-white grandparent.
- There were slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys, boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones, and a merry little quadroon, who could not be taken in elsewhere, but who was welcome to the ‘Bhaer-garten’, though some people predicted that his admission would...1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 47, in Little Women: […], 2nd part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC
- Diana was a black quadroon, her father being a blackfellow.
  He was the father of four quadroons who were regarded as half-castes because the lighter part of their mother's blood was Asiatic, and he was only too well aware of what their future would be should he desert them.1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, Chapter V, p. 63; Chapter VIII, p. 120 https://archive.org/details/capricornianovel00herb

Adjective

quadroon (not comparable)

(dated, historical) Of or related to quadroons.
- Before them, with her face upraised,
  In timid attitude,
  Like one half curious, half amazed,
  A Quadroon maiden stood.1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Quadroon Girl
- "What need you getting drunk, then, and cutting up, Prue?" said a spruce quadroon chambermaid, dangling, as she spoke, a pair of coral ear-drops.1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter XVII, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company...

quadroon meaning in Tamil and Urdu

quadroon in Tamil

கால்பங்கு கருப்புக்கலப்பினத்தார், காற்பாகக் கார்ப்பிறங்கடை

Forms of quadroon

plural	quadroons

Origin of quadroon

From Spanish cuarterón (“¾ white, a child of a European and a mestizo”), from cuarto (“one-fourth”) + -on (“-oon: forming related nouns”), from Latin quartus (“one-fourth”). Doublet of cuarteron.

Questions about quadroon

What does quadroon mean?: Quadroon means a person considered three-fourths white, having one non-white grandparent.
What is quadroon in Tamil?: Quadroon in Tamil is கால்பங்கு கருப்புக்கலப்பினத்தார், காற்பாகக் கார்ப்பிறங்கடை. See Quadroon meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is quadroon?: Quadroon can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce quadroon?: Quadroon is pronounced /kwɑːˈdɹuːn/.
What is the plural of quadroon?: The plural of quadroon is quadroons.

Words near quadroon in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: quadroon (page history and authors); quadroon (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quadroon (Urdu Wiktionary) (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: 2026-09-02

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