Word.ws English Dictionary

white man

white man noun: a man of European descent or having that appearance.

Noun (1)

white man (plural white men)

  1. A man of European descent or having that appearance.
    • Therefore he whacked the old n***** mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man, - I was told the chief's son, - in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man - and of course it went quite easy between the...1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 198
  2. White people collectively; white culture.
    • The arrival of the white man brought new things and new ideas, but also new wars and new diseases.
    • Savages are commonly supposed to be the slaves of custom to a far greater degree than the White Man, who by contrast appears as the child of reason.1927, A. M. Hocart, Are Savages Custom-Bound?, in Man, vol. 27
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see white, man.
    • The white men are always put on that side of the board which commences by row 1, and the black men are placed opposite.1883, Henry Richter, Chess Simplified!, page 4
    • We will suppose that you are the player of the white men, and that your opponent[,] the player of the black men[,] is sitting opposite to you, ready for battle.1908, The Chess Amateur, volume 2, page 39

Noun (2) capitalized: White Man

White Man (uncountable)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of white man (collectively)

Noun (3) capitalized: White man

White man (plural White men)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of white man.

Examples of white man in a sentence

  • […] very little attempt seems to have been made so far to deal with the whole problem of the African in contact with white man’s law, […]1933, G. St. J. Orde Browne, British Justice and the African, in the Journal of the Royal African Society, vol. 32, no. 127
  • Well the Aboriginals are trying to step forward a little but in a lot of ways the white man is still keeping them down, in a politeful sort of way.1992, Bruce Shaw, When the Dust Come in Between, page 149:

Synonyms of white man

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of white man

pluralwhite men
alternative formWhite man
alternative formWhite Man
pluralWhite men

Words formed from white man

Questions about white man

What does white man mean?
White man means a man of European descent or having that appearance.
How do you use white man in a sentence?
[…] very little attempt seems to have been made so far to deal with the whole problem of the African in contact with white man’s law, […]
What part of speech is white man?
White man is a noun.
What is the plural of white man?
The plural of white man is white men.

Words near white man in the dictionary

  1. white magicians
  2. white magick
  3. white mahoganies
  4. white mahogany
  5. white maire
  6. white man
  7. white man's burden
  8. white man's grave
  9. White Man's Graves
  10. white mangrove
  11. white mangroves

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: white man (page history and authors); White Man (page history and authors); White man (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: “white man.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/white_man. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.