Meanings
plural quintroons · alternative quinteron · alternative quinteroon · alternative quintoon
- datedThe offspring of a mustiphini (1/16 black) and a white person: 1/32 black.
Some authors, who have treated on the West Indies, do not count so far; but the writer of this, has seen more than one family of Quintroons by Mustiphini mothers in a state of slavery; which of course, would not have been the case, had they been those persons called white by law.
1828, Marly, Or, A Planter's Life in Jamaica, page 1831 more example
"A samboe," says he, "is the nearest remove from black, being the child of a mulatto father and a negro woman, or vice versa; a mulatto is the offspring of a white man by a negress; a quadroon is the offspring of a white man and a mulatto mother; the child of a quadroon by a white man is a mustee; the child of a white man by a mustee woman is a mustiphini; the child of a mustiphini by a white father is a quintroon; and the child of a quintroon by a white woman is free by law." Among all these names, hard to pronounce and harder to remember, the samboe or mongrel, as it is oftener called, the mulatto and the mustee, are the only distinctions between the black and white that really pass current, though more have been defined;
1833 Frederic William Naylor Bayley Four Years' Residence in the West Indies p. 493
Origin
- Spanishquinterón“offspring of a quadroon and a white person”
- Englishquintroon
Borrowed from Spanish quinterón (“offspring of a quadroon and a white person”).
More words from Spanish
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
quintroon. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quintroon
“quintroon.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quintroon. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “quintroon,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quintroon.
Source: quintroon on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.