Definition of "mulatto" []

• A person having one white and one Black parent. See Usage Note at octoroon. (noun)
• A person of mixed white and Black ancestry. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans."
• "The definition of the term mulatto, as understood in this state, seems to be vague, signifying generally a person of mixed white or European and Negro parentage, in whatever proportions the blood of the two races may be mingled in the individual."
• ""` The term mulatto, '" he read, "` is not invariably applicable to every admixture of African blood with the European, nor is one having all the features of a white to be ranked with the degraded class designated by the laws of this State as persons of color, because of some remote taint of the negro race."