mulatto

[ muh-lat-oh, -lah-toh, myoo- ]

noun

plural mulattoes, mulattos.

1. Anthropology. (not in technical use) the offspring of one white parent and one Black parent.
2. Older Use: Offensive. a person who has both Black and white ancestors.

adjective

1. of a light-brown color.

mulatto

/ mjuːˈlætəʊ /

noun

1. a person having one Black and one White parent

adjective

1. of a light brown colour

Word History and Origins

Origin of mulatto¹

First recorded in 1585–95; from Spanish mulato “young mule,” equivalent to mul(o) mule ¹ + -ato of unclear origin

Word History and Origins

Origin of mulatto¹

C16: from Spanish mulato young mule, variant of mulo mule ¹

Example Sentences

He identifies as Black; she is multiracial and comfortable using the word “mulatto” to describe herself.

From Los Angeles Times

Ten years after, she has yet to finish her second book, which has bloomed into an elephantine “four-hundred-year history of mulatto people in fictional form” — what her husband Lenny calls a “mulatto ‘War and Peace.’”

From Los Angeles Times

Washington and other white people used the word mulatto for such mixed-race people.

From Literature

Morton identified Voorhees as “mulatto,” which some historians say in the 19th century often meant a Black person with mixed ancestry, including Indigenous ancestry.

From Science Magazine

But in her conversation with her cousin, she learned that census records showed that one of their ancestors, Webster’s fourth great-grandmother, had shifted in the 1800s from identifying as “mulatto” to “White” and started passing.

From Washington Post