Forms: α. 8 quarteron, (9 -oon), quatron, 8–9 -eron, 9 -roon. β. 8 quaderoon, 9 quadroon. [ad. Sp. cuarteron (hence F. quarteron), f. cuarto fourth, quarter; the mod. form may be due to assoc. with other words in quadr-.]
1. a. One who is the offspring of a white person and a mulatto; one who has a quarter of negro blood. b. rarely. One who is fourth in descent from a negro, one of the parents in each generation being white.
In early Sp. use chiefly applied to the offspring of a white and a mestizo, or half-breed Indian. When it is used to denote one who is fourth in descent from a negro, the previous stage is called a terceron: see the transl. of Juan and Ulloa’s Voyage (1772), I. 30, and cf. QUINTROON.
α. 1707. Sloane, Jamaica, I. p. xlvi. The inhabitants of Jamaica are for the most part Europeans … who are the Masters, and Indians, Negros, Mulatos, Alcatrazes, Mestises, Quarterons, &c. who are the Slaves.
1793. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), IV. 98. Castaing is described as a small dark mulatto, and La Chaise as a Quarteron, of a tall fine figure.
1819. W. Lawrence, Lect. Physiol. Zool., 295. Europeans and Tercerons produce Quarterons or Quadroons.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. V. iv. Your pale-white Creoles … and your yellow Quarteroons.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xiii. 29. The least drop of Spanish blood, if it be only of quatroon or octoon.
β. 1796. Stedman, Surinam, I. 296. The Samboe dark, and the Mulatto brown, The Mæsti fair, the well-limbed Quaderoon.
1819. [see α].
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 228. The progeny of a white and a negro is a mulatto, or half and half—of a white and mulatto, a quadroon, or one quarter black.
1880. ‘Ouida,’ Moths, I. 178. That brute goes with a quadroon to a restaurant.
Comb. 1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V., xxi. (1891), 292. How could he ever come to fancy such a quadroon-looking thing as that?
c. transf. Applied to the offspring resulting from similar admixture of blood in the case of other races, or from crossing in the case of animals or plants.
1811. Southey, in Q. Rev., VI. 346. Whether a man were a half-new Christian, or a quateron, or a half-quateron … the Hebrew leaven was in the blood.
1879. trans. De Quatrefages’ Hum. Spec., 72. Koelreuter artificially fertilised hybrid flowers … and thus obtained a vegetable quadroon.
1892. Daily News, 16 June, 5/3. The offspring of these crosses [of rabbits] did not in any instance produce a ‘quadroon.’
2. attrib. or as adj. Quadroon black, the offspring of a pure negro and a quadroon (Syd. Soc. Lex., 1897).
1748. Earthquake of Peru, iii. 240. Quatron Indians, born of Whites and Mestizos. Ibid. Quatron Negroes, born of Whites and Mulattos.
1796. Stedman, Surinam, I. vi. 126. A young and beautiful Quadroon girl. Ibid., II. xviii. 56. A female quaderoon slave.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. i. 14–5. A marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl.
1893. Selous, Trav. S. E. Africa, 60. A pretty though languid-looking mulatto, or rather quadroon girl.
