African American

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[af-ri-kuhn uh-mer-i-kuhn]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

an American with Black African ancestry.

adjective

of or relating to African Americans.
African-American, occurring between the United States and Africa.
Several international charities are promoting African-American cooperation in expanding access to safe drinking water.

African-American

noun

an American of African descent

adjective

of or relating to Americans of African descent

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Usage

During the 1980s, many Americans sought to display pride in their immigrant origins. Linguistically, this brought about a brief period of short-form hyphenated designations, like Italo-Americans and Greco-Americans. The Black community also embraced the existing term Afro-American, a label that emphasized geographical or ethnic heritage over skin color. The related label, African American, also saw an increase in use among activists in the 1970s and 1980s. African American was even more widely adopted in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s after high-profile Black leaders advocated for it, arguing, as Jesse Jackson did, that the term brought “proper historical context” and had “cultural integrity.” See Black ¹.

This is the currently preferred term in the US for people of African ancestry

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Word History and Origins

Origin of African American¹

An Americanism dating back to 1780–90

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

“My team was almost exclusively African Americans, and I think it’s just because of the experience of Black people in this country,” Pyatt said.

From

To your point, if you look at the data, you don't see huge class breaks among African Americans, for example, in terms of support for Trump.

From

The images, taken in 1850, will be transferred to the International African American Museum in South Carolina, where the people shown in the photos were enslaved.

From

County Stentorians office, an association for African American firefighters, the Democratic representatives gathered with local advocates in front of a cluster of television news cameras to share the details of the newly introduced act.

From

Phillip Atiba Solomon, a psychologist and chair of African American Studies at Yale University, said he’s skeptical of news coverage that would suggest there’s been dramatic change.

From

Africana African American English

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