Word.ws English Dictionary

Rastus

Rastus proper noun: a male given name of American usage.

Proper noun

Rastus

  1. A male given name of American usage.

Noun

Rastus (plural Rastuses)

  1. (historical, offensive) A stereotypical African American man, often a cheerful character in minstrel shows.
    • But neither did it turn them into Rastuses and Sambos; nor deprive their behaviour of logical and recognisable roots in the conditions of a regional culture whose impact had been distilled into Negro spirituals or the blues.2016, Eva Lennox Birch, Black American Women's Writings, page 59
    • From the end of slavery to the period of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, ads in the U.S. continued to show blacks as Aunt Jemimas, Uncle Bens and Rastuses—individuals subservient to whites.2019, Patricia H. Hoffman-Miller, Marlon James, Douglas Hermond, African American Suburbanization and the Consequential Loss of Identity, page 21

Forms of Rastus

pluralRastuses

Origin of Rastus

Thought to be derived from Erastus. Despite paucity of actual usage, the name became associated with African-American men because of a character in the first Uncle Remus book by Joel Chandler Harris.

Questions about Rastus

What does Rastus mean?
Rastus means a male given name of American usage.
What part of speech is Rastus?
Rastus can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Rastus in the dictionary

  1. rastrology
  2. rastrum
  3. rastrums
  4. Rastsislau
  5. rastsvetaevite
  6. Rastus
  7. Rastuses
  8. rasul
  9. rasuls
  10. rasure
  11. rasures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Rastus (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:

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