Uncle Tom

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Uncle Tom

(tŏm)

A black person who is regarded as being subservient or excessively deferential to white people.

[After Uncle Tom, , a character in Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe.]

Uncle Tom′ism n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Uncle Tom

informal derogatory a Black person whose behaviour towards White people is regarded as obsequious and servile

[C20: after the slave who is the main character of H.B. Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)]

Uncle Tomism n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Un′cle Tom′

usage: This term is used with disparaging intent and is perceived as highly insulting. Though usually used of a black person, it occasionally refers to a person of any race who exhibits overly deferential behavior, esp. a female.

—n.

Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. (a contemptuous term used to refer to a black person who is regarded as being abjectly servile or deferential to whites.)

[1920–25, Amer.; so called after the leading character in H. B. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin]

Un′cle Tom′ism, n.

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Noun	1.	Uncle Tom - (ethnic slur) offensive and derogatory name for a Black man who is abjectly servile and deferential to Whites Tom depreciation - a communication that belittles somebody or something ethnic slur - a slur on someone's race or language Black person, Black - a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa)
	2.	Uncle Tom - a servile black character in a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe

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References in classic literature ?

The cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building, close adjoining to "the house," as the negro par excellence designates his master's dwelling.

"Not that way, Uncle Tom,--not that way," said he, briskly, as Uncle Tom laboriously brought up the tail of his g the wrong side out; "that makes a q, you see."

"La sakes, now, does it?" said Uncle Tom, looking with a respectful, admiring air, as his young teacher flourishingly scrawled q's and g's innumerable for his edification; and then, taking the pencil in his big, heavy fingers, he patiently recommenced.

"La, now!" said Uncle Tom, "they are so full of tickle all the while, they can't behave theirselves."

As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom's weekly, for an indefinite length of time, without any more "cheers," there seemed some encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.

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"Dear Aunt Polly and Uncle Tom:--Oh, I can--I can--I CAN walk!

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I read it as it came out week after week in the old National Era, and I broke my heart over Uncle Tom's Cabin, as every one else did.

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Did you watch her face when we went into that tent where they was actin' out Uncle Tom's Cabin?

I saw the water streaming over the road towards the ditch, and it reminded me of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Milltown, when Eliza took her baby and ran across the Mississippi on the ice blocks, pursued by the bloodhounds.

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The literature of the Negro in America is colossal, from political oratory through abolitionism to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Cotton is King"--a vast mass of books which many men have read to the waste of good years (and I among them); but the only books that I have read a second time or ever care again to read in the whole list (most of them by tiresome and unbalanced "reformers") are "Uncle Remus" and "Up from Slavery"; for these are the great literature of the subject.

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Uncle Tom Sinnings is building a new barn on his place on the Valley Road."

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If we do so, you just say to us, as old Chloe did in UNCLE TOM, `Tink ob yer marcies, chillen!