niggerhead

plural niggerheads · alternative nigger head

1. countabledatedoffensiveuncountablenauticalA bollard made from an old cannon.
2. archaiccolloquialcountableoffensiveuncountablegeographyA geode.
3. countableoffensiveuncountableA coneflower.
4. countableoffensiveuncountableA coral or stone outcrop that stands above the surface of the water.

   Landward is the almost unbroken wall of submerged reefs where the big niggerhead corals send their solid bulks up to within a fathom or two of the surface.

   1989, Rachel Louise Carson, Jeffrey S. Levinton, The Sea Around Us, page 135

   2 more examples

   We were sailing swiftly along on a calm and glassy sea, past beautiful headlands and bits of scenery clothed with vivid and luxuriant green down to the water's edge; past glistening coral islands, on whose outer edges pale green billows broke on the white sandy beaches, boiling and seething as they dashed against a row of ugly "nigger heads," as the rocks were called, dotted here and there.

   1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 35

   Sometimes the hourglass waist of a niggerhead gave him shelter and he rested for a few moments knowing that the small froth of his air-bubbles would be hidden by the jagged knob protruding above the surface.

   1954, Ian Fleming, “Beau Desert”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 202

5. UScountabledatedoffensiveuncountableAlaskaA tussock (clump of plant material), found on the tundra.

   These plants fill the interstices between the grasses and tiny shrubs that make the outer, fuller form of the niggerhead.

   1912, Appalachia, volume 12, page 51

   4 more examples

   Responsible in large part for the difficulties of movement to which the geologists referred were tussocks, still known as “niggerheads” in the 1930s. The “niggerhead,” according to Bob Marshall, “among the gifts of nature, ranks as the most cursed.[…]”

   1991, Peter A. Coates, The Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy, page 108

   Much of the land is tundra, a mass of spongy, waterlogged clumps of sphagnum moss called tussock, muskeg, hummock, or in the vernacular of old-time Alaskans “niggerheads.”

   2004, James Campbell, The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness, page 65

   From the air, the bright green grassy floor of the tundra looks as smooth as a golf course fairway, but a closer inspection reveals peaty tussocks of crabgrass called niggerheads spaced just far enough apart for a foot to twist clumsily between. Walking on the frost-formed niggerheads is very much akin to walking across a gymnasium floor covered by thousands of glued-in-place softballs.

   2006, Kit Cain, Flying The Yukon's Bush, page 30

   This sloshing was compounded by the fact we were unable to keep in step with each other due to the many and various sized niggerheads (hard tussocks in tundra) that would attempt to roll from under us as if one was stepping on balls ranging in size from softballs to basketballs, with each step if unable (most of the time we could not) to avoid.

   2012, Otis Hammonds, As the Hawks... Free of Earth's Bounds, Xlibris, unnumbered page

6. archaiccountableuncountableA strong black variety of chewing tobacco, usually in twisted plug form.

   Synonyms: nigger tobacco

7. archaiccountabledialectaloffensiveuncountableA stone, piece of gangue, or lump of coal that is of a grade with a certain size.

   […] cutting lumber, burning prodigious accumulations of brush, grubbing stumps, hauling niggerheads on a stoneboat to fence rows. Back-breaking toil that meant, literally, eating bread in the sweat of one's brow!

   1945, The Chemurgic Digest, volumes 4-5, National Farm Chemurgic Council, page 387

   2 more examples

   The boys picked up field-stones and built a great, splendid fireplace and chimney at one end of the shop. The work came out so well that I said: "Boys, here is a great scheme—these hardheads are splendid building-material." So we advertised we would pay a dollar a load for niggerheads. The farmers began to haul stones; and at last they had hauled eighteen hundred loads.

   1902 January 28, Elbert Hubbard, quotee, “An interesting personality: Elbert Hubbard”, in The Cosmopolitan: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine, volume 32, number 3, Schlicht and Field, page 312

   The presence of "niggerheads" is of rather common occurrence in the northern area. These are nodule-like bodies of coal, varying from a few inches to a few feet in diameter, irregularly disseminated in the beds of normal coal. The "niggerheads" are harder than ordinary coal and have a smooth, locally slickensided, lustrous outer surface. The interior is composed of alternating bands of bright and dull coal like the surrounding bed. "Niggerheads" evidently are due to physical strains, but their origin is obscure.

   1910, Investigations of Coal Fields in Colorado and New Mexico by the United States Geological Survey in 1908, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 137

   Synonyms: hardhead

8. countablederogatoryethnicoffensivesluruncountablevulgarA term of abuse for a black person.