nigger-brown

nigger-brown (uncountable)

1. (offensive, ethnic slur) Of a very dark brown color.
   • 1935, Alan Campbell-Johnson, Growing Opinions: A Symposium of British Youth Outlook, page 165:

     She is on the sofa, knitting a nigger-brown jumper which looks as if it will be quite successful.

   • 1949, C. Geoffrey Holme, Decorative Art, page 26:

     Fireplace, AT LEFT, tiled with nigger-brown briquettes.

   • 1938, Interior Decoration To-day, page 132:

     The walls and ceiling of this drawing-room in Montague Square are painted ivory. The modern sofa built on classical lines is covered in nigger brown striped moire and fringed all round with brown and white spaced fringe […]

   • 1950 July, “Diesel Train Services for G.N.R.(I.)”, in Railway Magazine, page 490:

     The first class compartments are trimmed below the waist with grained nigger-brown leather cloth and above with beige leather cloth with a nigger brown band behind the chromium-plated luggage racks.

   • 1956, Homes and Gardens, volume 38, page 175:

     We have a three-piece suite upholstered in nigger-brown velvet […]

• Once considered acceptable, as evidenced by the citations above, and in regular usage until at least the 1960s, this term is now considered highly racially pejorative; see notes at nigger.