native American

native American

English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

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Noun

native American (plural native Americans)

  1. (dated) A resident of the United States who is not an immigrant.
    • 1919, H. P. Lovecraft, Beyond the Wall of Sleep‎[1]:
      His name, as given on the records, was Joe Slater, or Slaader, and his appearance was that of the typical denizen of the Catskill Mountain region; one of those strange, repellent scions of a primitive colonial peasant stock whose isolation for nearly three centuries in the hilly fastnesses of a little-travelled countryside has caused them to sink to a kind of barbaric degeneracy, […] their general mental status is probably below that of any other section of the native American people.

Usage notes

  • This term can cause confusion, especially when native is capitalized, and the phrase native-born American is preferred in ambiguous contexts. This definition was used by anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant political factions in the 1850s; they called themselves the "Native American Party" before settling on the names "Americans" and "Know-Nothings".
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