yellow peril
yellow peril noun: the alleged threat to Western nations by East Asians, especially Chinese or Japanese people, due to their vast population, non-Western cultures, or supposed antagonism to the West.
Noun (1)
yellow peril (plural yellow perils)
- The alleged threat to Western nations by East Asians, especially Chinese or Japanese people, due to their vast population, non-Western cultures, or supposed antagonism to the West.
- Perhaps the German Emperor is the only man who really believes in the “Yellow Peril,” and what is this “Yellow Peril”?
The thought that the Japanese will get control of 500,000,000 Chinamen, arm them, and kill off the white men is so absurd that a child would laugh at it.1891, Phillip Jaisohn, “The Far Eastern War from a Japanese point of view”, in Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends, page 94 - I cannot, after a survey necessarily crammed with conjecture, conceive that the Yellow Peril will devastate Europe, or endanger the East Indies, though it may change their populations.1900 December, Lloyd Sanders, “The Yellow Perils”, in The Anglo-Saxon Review, volume VII, page 102
- Synonyms:
- yellow menace, yellow terror
- Perhaps the German Emperor is the only man who really believes in the “Yellow Peril,” and what is this “Yellow Peril”?
- East Asian nations or peoples, conceived as threatening.
- It was such a journey as I had taken once before, early in our pursuit of the genius of the Yellow Peril; but this was infinitely more terrible; for now we were utterly in Fu-Manchu’s power.1913, Sax Rohmer, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, page 335
- Synonyms:
- yellow horde
Noun (2) capitalized: Yellow Peril
Yellow Peril (plural Yellow Perils)
- Alternative letter-case form of yellow peril.
yellow peril meaning in Vietnamese
yellow peril in Vietnamese
- perceived threat from East Asia
- hiểm hoạ da vàng
Synonyms of yellow peril
Forms of yellow peril
| plural | yellow perils |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Yellow Peril |
| alternative form | the yellow peril |
| plural | Yellow Perils |
Origin of yellow peril
Of yellow + peril, modeled on earlier French péril jaune. Compare yellow as a racist term for East Asian people. Attested in English from the 1890s. The French cognate is attested from the 1880s.
Words formed from yellow peril
Questions about yellow peril
- What does yellow peril mean?
- Yellow peril means the alleged threat to Western nations by East Asians, especially Chinese or Japanese people, due to their vast population, non-Western cultures, or supposed antagonism to the West.
- What is yellow peril in Vietnamese?
- Yellow peril in Vietnamese is hiểm hoạ da vàng. See Yellow peril meaning in Vietnamese.
- What part of speech is yellow peril?
- Yellow peril is a noun.
- What is the plural of yellow peril?
- The plural of yellow peril is yellow perils.
Words near yellow peril in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: yellow peril (page history and authors); Yellow Peril (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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Cite this entry: “yellow peril.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yellow_peril. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.