Meanings
- The supposed responsibility of European people to govern and care for their colonial subjects.
Uncle Sam has found his box of tricks heavy, and is having a whiff before going on with his white man's burden to the end.
1902 January 2, The Evening Telegraph, Charters Towers, page 3, column 22 more examples
Germany's appearance as a colonizing power in Africa was greeted in no unfriendly spirit by either France or Great Britain. Each of the latter felt that it was already possessed of about all it could comfortably look after, and both realized that another shoulder under "The White Man's Burden" in the Dark Continent might make the load easier for all.
1915 October 6, Lewis Ransome Freeman, “Germany's Exit From Africa”, in The World's Work, volume XXXSo into at least one state troops poured, a battalion of decent National Service lads, to continue to carry, posthumously as it must be supposed, the White Man's Burden.
1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 609
Origin
From the poem The White Man's Burden (published 1899) by Rudyard Kipling.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Mandarin 白人的负担
- 白人的负担supposed responsibility of whites
Finnish valkoisen miehen taakka
- valkoisen miehen taakkasupposed responsibility of whites
French fardeau de l'homme blanc
- fardeau de l'homme blancsupposed responsibility of whites
Swedish den vite mannens börda
- den vite mannens bördasupposed responsibility of whites
Cite this entry
white man's burden. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/white%20man's%20burden
“white man's burden.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/white%20man's%20burden. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “white man's burden,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/white%20man's%20burden.
Source: white man's burden on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.