Skinfolk
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 People who share the same skin color (race) with one another, especially when they are not otherwise closely associated or similar. plural, plural-only, uncommon
"It was, in part, this designation that Zora Neale Hurston sought to clarify with the distinction between "kinfolk" and "skinfolk" where one could imagine that all of one's skinfolk were not one's kinfolk (or lacked a good brain) and gave the skinfolk a bad name (Hurston, 1942)."
Example
More examples"It was, in part, this designation that Zora Neale Hurston sought to clarify with the distinction between "kinfolk" and "skinfolk" where one could imagine that all of one's skinfolk were not one's kinfolk (or lacked a good brain) and gave the skinfolk a bad name (Hurston, 1942)."
Etymology
From skin + folk, modelled on kinfolk.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.