coloreds

Dated racial term

Coloreds is a dated and offensive term for nonwhite people, especially Black Americans.

It was once standard—colored waiting room, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—but fell out of acceptable use by the mid-20th century.

In South Africa under apartheid, Coloureds designated people of mixed racial ancestry as a distinct legal category.

Using the term today signals either historical context or racial insensitivity.

historical

segregation

Forced separation by group

emancipation · Reconstruction · civil rights · Plessy v. Ferguson · Freedmen's Bureau · Great Migration · pass laws · Group Areas Act · racial classification · one-drop rule

offensive

slur

Insulting group label

bigoted · dehumanizing · denigrating · stigmatizing · disparaging · degrading · demeaning · taboo · unacceptable · harmful

archaic

antiquated

Old and outdated

anachronistic · old-fashioned · bygone · deprecated · disused · superseded

Opposites
racial designation (historical/apartheid terminology)

coloredswhites

Pale-colored items collectively

white people · Europeans · Caucasians · Anglos · first-class citizens

Phrases
Family

colored, multicolored, discolored, uncolored, recolored, miscolored

Familiarity
Top 500,000
Profile
Mostly American · Timeless · Negative · Everyday, not technical · Rated PG-13