Entry · catalog no. 9306

skillet

Q: What does “skillet” mean?

An old derogatory term among Black Americans for a Black person, especially a very dark-skinned one; recorded here as part of the historical record.

/ /ˈskɪlət/ /SKIL-it

noun · Harlem and the rural South · 1930s

✓ Verified

A derogatory term for a Black person, especially a very dark-skinned one, taken from the black cast-iron frying pan. Used in-group, it carried the color prejudice of its time and is now an insult.

“Hurston records the line 'You skillets is trying to promote a meal on me' (1942).”

In the compound 'skillet blond(e)', a very dark-skinned person, later also a Black woman wearing a blonde wig.

“Hurston records 'dat skillet blond was too lazy to work' (1935).”

Origin & Attribution

The term comes from the black iron cooking pan and appears in Black Southern and Harlem speech of the 1930s and 1940s. Zora Neale Hurston recorded 'skillet blond' in Mules and Men (1935) and 'skillets' in 'Story in Harlem Slang' (1942); Green's Dictionary of Slang also dates it to the 1930s from I. L. Allen's study of color terms. It is an insult grounded in colorism and anti-Black color hierarchy, documented here as history, not endorsed.

1935

'Skillet blond' in Hurston's Mules and Men

1942

'Skillets' in Hurston's 'Story in Harlem Slang'

1972

Defined in Rodgers' Queens' Vernacular as Black gay slang ('skillet queen')

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide

Harlem and the rural South · 1930s

Spoken by

Black speakers in Harlem and the South

$SKILLEThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Fading

91 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

10/100

peak cultural energy

Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

1935

in the culture

Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.

Hear it spoken

By region — how it actually sounds

@auntiereg

Atlanta, GA

@deltasoul

Memphis, TN

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Citations & Sources

■

Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men, 1935

book

■

Zora Neale Hurston, 'Story in Harlem Slang', American Mercury, 1942

book

■

Green's Dictionary of Slang, entries 'skillet' and 'skillet blond(e)' (quotations from Hurston 1935 and 1942)

web

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