Word.ws English Dictionary

snuff-and-butter

snuff-and-butter noun: an individual of mixed racial heritage.

Noun

snuff-and-butter (plural snuff-and-butters)

  1. (dated, derogatory, ethnic, slur) An individual of mixed racial heritage.
    • Your sweetheart fell in love with you in the Port of London, and presently afterwards with another pretty woman in the Port of Calcutta, which is generally the way with poor Tom Bowling. She was a snuff-and-butter, because at Calcutta they are as plenty as blackberries; and when young...1883, Sir Walter Besant, “The Captains' Room etc.”, in The Message of the Mute, chapter 1, page 18
    • In the event of the beasts failing us, we took also ten of the best of those Strathmuir men who had accompanied us on the sea-cow trip, to serve as bearers when it became necessary. It cannot be said that these snuff-and-butter fellows—for most, if not all of them had some dash of white blood in...1921, Sir Henry Rider Haggard, She and Allan, chapter 8 Pursuit

Examples of snuff-and-butter in a sentence

  • She was a snuff-and-butter, because at Calcutta they are as plenty as blackberries; and when young, snuff-and-butter is not to be despised, having bright eyes; […]1883, Sir Walter Besant, “The Captains' Room etc.”, in The Message of the Mute, chapter 1, page 18:
  • It cannot be said that these snuff-and-butter fellows—for most, if not all of them had some dash of white blood in their veins—were exactly willing volunteers.1921, Sir Henry Rider Haggard, She and Allan, chapter 8 Pursuit

Forms of snuff-and-butter

pluralsnuff-and-butters

Questions about snuff-and-butter

What does snuff-and-butter mean?
Snuff-and-butter means an individual of mixed racial heritage.
How do you use snuff-and-butter in a sentence?
She was a snuff-and-butter, because at Calcutta they are as plenty as blackberries; and when young, snuff-and-butter is not to be despised, having bright eyes; […]
What part of speech is snuff-and-butter?
Snuff-and-butter is a noun.
What is the plural of snuff-and-butter?
The plural of snuff-and-butter is snuff-and-butters.

Words near snuff-and-butter in the dictionary

  1. snuff movie
  2. snuff movies
  3. snuff out
  4. snuff video
  5. snuff videos
  6. snuff-and-butter
  7. snuff-and-butters
  8. snuff-box
  9. snuff-boxes
  10. snuff-dish
  11. snuff-dishes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snuff-and-butter (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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