Jim Crow

verb

Jim Crowed; Jim Crowing; Jim Crows

transitive verb

: to restrict the liberty of (someone) through Jim Crow

—usually used in passive constructions

I also like it because we've got subways and it does not take all day to get downtown, neither are you Jim Crowed on the way.

—Langston Hughes

[Frederick] Douglass was Jim Crowed on railroads, on steamboats and in hotels more times than he could count, but loved the Declaration of Independence, the natural-rights tradition and especially the reinvented Constitution—the one rewritten in Washington during Reconstruction, not the one created in Philadelphia in 1789.

—David W. Blight

Word History

First Known Use

1899, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for Jim Crow

• acknow
• aglow
• ago
• airglow
• aloe
• altho
• although
• ammo
• backflow
• backhoe
• banjo
• barbeau

Kids Definition

jim crow

noun

ˈjim-ˈkrō 

often capitalized J&C

: discrimination against Black people enforced by law especially in the southern U.S. from 1877 until the mid-20th century