Etymology

blackface

black·face
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Today it means: The practice in which a nonblack person blackens their face using theatrical makeup in order to portray a caricature of a black person. Full definition →

English face ← Middle English face ← Old French face
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blackface · noun1

  1. Proto-Germanic*blakaz
  2. Proto-West Germanic*blak
  3. Old Englishblæc
  4. Middle Englishblak
  5. Englishblack
  6. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁-
  7. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁k-
  8. Proto-Indo-European*dʰh₁kyéti
  9. Proto-Italic*θakjō
  10. Proto-Italic*fakjō
  11. Latinfaciō
  12. Latinfaciēs
  13. Late Latinfacia
  14. Old Frenchface
  15. Middle Englishface
  16. Englishface
  17. English todayblackface

From black + face.

Blackface · noun2

From black + face.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.