blackface

Etymology

It is formed from English black + face.^[2][3][4][5] It was also written with a hyphen.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dark-skinned person: 1704, in the journal of Sarah Knight, a use the OED labels originally and chiefly American, now rare and offensive.^[2] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1695–1705.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a person and then, from 1767, a black-letter and later a bold typeface.^[2] From 1802 it named a breed of sheep with a black face, especially the Scottish Blackface, the sense Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives first.^[2][6] The sense that is now the main one, the make-up worn by a non-black performer to imitate a black person, is recorded in the United States from 1847.^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1868 and notes that the phrase seems not to have been common in print before the 1880s, although the stage practice, with burnt cork or other make-up used to blacken the face, goes back to the 1830s.^[3] Dictionaries also use it for a performer wearing such make-up, especially in a minstrel show.^[7][8] The OED also records the wider sense of the practice of imitating the appearance of a black person.^[2]

Timeline

• 1704 – a dark-skinned person (now rare and offensive).^[2]
• 1767 – black-letter type, and later boldface type.^[2]
• 1802 – a breed of sheep with a black face, or a sheep of this breed.^[2][6]
• 1847 – make-up worn by a non-black performer to imitate a black person.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1868,^[3] and Merriam-Webster to 1869.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Makeup worn by a non-Black performer to caricature a Black person, especially in a minstrel show; also, the practice of wearing it: The comedian's old sketches in blackface were pulled from the archive.^[7][6][9][2]
2. A performer wearing such makeup.^[7][6][9]
3. A sheep with a black face, especially one of the Scottish Blackface breed.^[6][9][2]
4. (typography) Boldface type.^[6][2]

Related words

• black
• face
• boldface

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins