Lightskin
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A black, mixed race, Indigenous, Latino, or other person of color who has relatively light-coloured skin.
"A man who is getting ahead tends to seek a lighter mate, and because “a good man is hard to find,” it would be difficult for a lightskin girl consistently to reject darker people. A darker man who offers security, through social position and other advantages, may well be preferred to a lightskin man of little enterprise."
Synonyms
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More examples"A man who is getting ahead tends to seek a lighter mate, and because “a good man is hard to find,” it would be difficult for a lightskin girl consistently to reject darker people. A darker man who offers security, through social position and other advantages, may well be preferred to a lightskin man of little enterprise."
Etymology
From light + skin.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.