Etymology

whitey

whit·ey
W4H4I1T1E1Y4

Today it means: A white person, a person of Western European descent. Full definition →

English white ← Middle English whit ← Old English hwīt
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱweyt-
  2. Proto-Germanic*hwītaz
  3. Proto-West Germanic*hwīt
  4. Old Englishhwīt
  5. Middle Englishwhit
  6. Englishwhite
  7. English todaywhitey

From white (“bright and colorless; a white-skinned person”) + -y (“forming diminutives”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.