Word.ws English Dictionary

white russian

white russian is the alternative letter-case form of White Russian.

Adjective capitalized: White Russian

White Russian (not comparable)

  1. Of or relating to Russians with tsarist or anti-Soviet sympathies in the period directly following the Revolution in 1917.
    • The overseer of the clinic was a White Russian woman, a nun, formerly of the Russian Orthodox community in Jerusalem, but a good-hearted woman. In these cases, we should not be too scrupulous politically, said the priest.1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 340
  2. (obsolete) Of or relating to Belarus, literally "White Russia", or its language.

Noun (1) capitalized: White Russian

White Russian (countable and uncountable, plural White Russians)

  1. A cocktail consisting of coffee liqueur, vodka, and milk.
    • Few cocktails include milk and cream, so the White Russian is a welcome departure from the norm. Already a popular drink in its own right, the White Russian was made famous by Jeff Bridges’ character in “The Big Lebowski.”2015, Shane Carley, The Mason Jar Cocktail Companion, Cider Mill Press, →ISBN, page 15
    Synonyms:
    Caucasian
  2. (historical) A White Guardist, a Russian who did not support the Socialists in the Revolution in 1917 and the Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and afterwards (e.g. as a White émigré).
    • The White Guard colony in Harbin is armed and organized along military lines. At the head of this army of counter-revolution—the shock troops of Japanese imperialism—stands the notorious tsarist bandit, "Ataman" Semionov.[1935, Leon Dennen, White Guard Terrorists in the U.S.A., New York City: Friends of the Soviet Union, page 18
  3. (obsolete) A Belarusian person.
    • (Thus Engels expected Austria-Hungary to swallow up the small Balkan countries; Poland, as a historical nation, should, he thought, be restored and include in its dominion the less developed peoples to the east-Lithuanians, White Russians, and Ukrainians.)1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume I: The Founders, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: powstanie (in...

Proper noun capitalized: White Russian

White Russian

  1. (obsolete) The Belarusian language.

Noun (2) capitalized: white Russian

white Russian (countable and uncountable, plural white Russians)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of White Russian (“cocktail consisting of coffee liqueur, vodka, and milk”).

Synonyms of white russian

Forms of white russian

pluralwhite russians
pluralWhite Russians
pluralwhite Russians

Origin of white russian

(cocktail): The word white refers to the milk, while Russian refers to the vodka.

Questions about white russian

What does white russian mean?
White russian means of or relating to Russians with tsarist or anti-Soviet sympathies in the period directly following the Revolution in 1917.
What is white russian the alternative letter-case form of?
White russian is the alternative letter-case form of White Russian.
What part of speech is white russian?
White russian can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.

Words near white russian in the dictionary

  1. white room
  2. white rooms
  3. white rot
  4. White Rus
  5. White Russia
  6. white russian
  7. white russians
  8. white rust
  9. White Ruthenia
  10. white sage
  11. white sages

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: white russian (page history and authors); White Russian (page history and authors); white Russian (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-White Russian.wav.

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