whiteness

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
white/wʌɪt/

▶adjective

• 1 of the colour of milk or fresh snow, due to the reflection of all visible rays of light.

  ■ very pale.

  ■ Brit. (of coffee or tea) served with milk.

  ■ (of food such as bread or rice) light in colour through having been refined.

• 2 relating to or denoting a human group having light-coloured skin, especially of European ancestry.

• 3 morally or spiritually pure.

• 4 (of wine) made from white grapes, or dark grapes with the skins removed, and having a yellowish colour.

• 5 (White) historical counter-revolutionary or reactionary.

▶noun

• 1 white colour or pigment.

  ■ (also whites) white clothes or material.

  ■ (White) the player of the white pieces in chess or draughts.

• 2 the visible pale part of the eyeball around the iris.

• 3 the outer part (white when cooked) which surrounds the yolk of an egg; the albumen.

• 4 a member of a light-skinned people.

• 5 a white or cream butterfly. [Pieris brassicae (large white), P. rapae (small white, both crop pests), and other species.]

▶verb

• 1 (usu. white something out) turn (something) white.

  ■ obliterate (a mistake) with white correction fluid.

• 2 (white out) lose colour vision as a prelude to losing consciousness.

– phrases
bleed someone/thing white drain of wealth or resources.
whited sepulchre literary a hypocrite. [with biblical allusion to Matt 23:27.]

– derivatives
whitely adverb,
whiten verb,
whitener noun,
whiteness noun,
whitish adjective.

– origin OE hwīt, of Gmc origin; rel. to wheat.

usage: White has been used to refer to the skin colour of Europeans or their descendants since the early 17th century. Although white has not been used in a derogatory way (unlike, for example, red), there is a growing tendency to use terms which relate to geographical origin rather than skin colour: hence the currently preferred term in the US is European.