English
Negrito
Negrito comes from Philippine Spanish negrito ‘short dark-skinned person’, and goes back to Latin nigrum.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnigrum
- Spanishc. 1500–presentnegro‘black person’
- Philippine Spanishmodernnegrito‘short dark-skinned person’
- Englishearliest quotation 1869Negrito
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnigrum
- Spanishc. 1500–presentnegro‘black person’
- Philippine Spanishmodernnegrito‘short dark-skinned person’
- Englishearliest quotation 1869Negrito
Earliest quotation: 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago: “The Negritos and the Semangs agree very closely in…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *negʷ- ‘bare, naked’
night, naked, nude, gymnastics, noir, nigger, nocturnal, gymnasium, actin, gymnast, naga, nox, denigrate, nocturne, nigella, nudism, negroni, 50 more
through Latin nigrum
Today it means
noun A member of a class of several ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin nigrum / Negrito