Question 1

What does “redbone” mean?

Accepted Answer

A light-skinned Black person, especially one with reddish or copper undertones to their skin — a term inside Black communities that names a specific position on the shade spectrum, distinct from 'yellowbone' (yellow undertones) or 'high yellow.' Used as a descriptor and, often, as a compliment or term of flirtation ('what's up, redbone'), though it can also carry the weight of colorism when it implies that lighter skin is more desirable than darker skin. Can apply to a person's actual mixed ancestry (Black, white, and/or Native) or simply to complexion regardless of known lineage.

Question 2

Where does “redbone” come from?

Accepted Answer

The word has two braided histories that Black Americans have long distinguished in practice even when outsiders collapse them. The first is an actual ethnonym: in southwest Louisiana and east Texas, 'Redbone' names a tri-racial community descended from free people of color who migrated from the Carolinas and Virginia after the Louisiana Purchase, settling the disputed 'Neutral Ground' between Louisiana and Texas. The second — the one this dictionary is chiefly concerned with — is the colorism term used across the wider Black American vernacular for a light-skinned person with red or copper und