Etymograph

English

mulatto

Mulatto comes from Spanish mulato ‘of mixed breed, young mule’, and goes back to Latin mūlus.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmūlus‘mule’
  2. Spanishc. 1500–presentmulo‘mule’
  3. Spanish, derivedc. 1500–presentmulato‘of mixed breed, young mule’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1949mulatto

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmūlus‘mule’
  2. Spanishc. 1500–presentmulo‘mule’
  3. Spanish, derivedc. 1500–presentmulato‘of mixed breed, young mule’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1949mulatto

Earliest quotation: 1949, Edward Nicholas, The hours and the ages: a sequence of Americans: “Respectable folk who did not want trouble stayed withindoors;…”

The story

Perhaps an allusion to the hybrid origin of mules.

Every English word from Latin mūlus

Today it means

noun A person of mixed black and white descent, especially a person with one black and one white parent or two mulatto parents.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Latin mūlus / mulatto

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