mammy

noun

mam·​my ˈma-mē 

plural mammies

1

: mama

2

offensive : a Black woman serving as a nurse to white children especially formerly in the southern U.S.

Synonyms

• ma
• mama
• mamma
• momma
• mater [chiefly British]
• mom
• mommy
• mother
• old lady

Examples of mammy in a Sentence

the toddler clung to her mammy and eyed the strangers fearfully

Recent Examples on the Web

The mammy stereotype, which desexualized both dark skinned enslaved and free women (who were often in domestic roles), made muting Black beauty the norm. —Brooklyn White, Essence, 30 Nov. 2022

Toxic archetypes of Black womanhood—the mammy, the Black matriarch, the jezebel (or the Scraggle Daggle, in SYSBM parlance), and the welfare mother—are all alive and well in the Black Manosphere. —Nicole Young, ELLE, 26 Jan. 2022

One example given is the Aunt Jemima brand and logo, a depiction of an older Black woman based on the archetype of a mammy. —Leah Asmelash, CNN, 1 Mar. 2021

The song features a mammy, a racial stereotype of the Black female caretaker figure devoted to her white family. —Miriam Fauzia, USA TODAY, 30 June 2020

No human being deserves to be in a cage, but this notion that Black women must play mammy and Moses for the world is killing us, while police officers with licenses to kill are murdering our children. —Kirsten West Savali, Essence, 3 Oct. 2019

Saar enlarged the slave ship image, printed it onto the surface of the ironing board, and at one end superimposed the image of a black woman ironing, dressed stereotypically as a mammy. —Washington Post, 25 Sep. 2019

But what complicates Hildi is the history of how black women, and especially slaves, have been treated in real life (raped, beaten) and depicted onscreen (as mammies or Jezebels). —Aisha Harris, New York Times, 7 Aug. 2019

The Help in 2011, doesn’t seem to get that Ma operates as a black-mammy stereotype. —Armond White, National Review, 7 June 2019

Word History

Etymology

alteration of mamma

First Known Use

1523, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mammy

• chamois
• clammy
• grammy
• sami
• sammie
• sammy
• tammy