African-american
//ˈæ.fɹɪ.kən əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kən// adj, noun
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A member of an ethnic group consisting of Americans of black African descent.
- 2 a person with African ancestry, ‘Negro’ and ‘Negroid’ are archaic and pejorative today wordnet
- 3 Any black American person; by extension, any black person. US, broadly, offensive, proscribed, sometimes
Adjective
- 1 Pertaining to the African-American ethnicity.
"The rioters overshadowed the message of peaceful protesters on prior days: They had called for justice for Gray, a 25-year-old African-American man who died from spinal injuries after police arrested him this month."
- 2 Black. US, broadly, offensive, proscribed, sometimes
- 3 Of or pertaining to the culture of African-American people.
"African-American music"
Adjective
- 1 pertaining to or characteristic of Americans of African ancestry wordnet
Example
More examples"Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. But my personal story is not so unique."
Etymology
Patterned on forms such as Irish-American, popularized by Jesse Jackson and in common use since the late 1980s.
Related phrases
More for "african-american"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.