Editing Nigger (section)

===Derivatives===
[[File:The Nigger in the Woodpile.jpg|thumb|Anti-abolitionist cartoon from the 1860 presidential campaign illustrating colloquial usage of "[[Nigger in the woodpile]]"]]

In several English-speaking countries, "[[Niggerhead]]" or "nigger head" was used as a name for many sorts of things, including [[#Commercial products|commercial products]], [[#Place names|places]], [[#Nature|plants and animals]], as a descriptive term (lit. 'black person's head'). It also is or was a colloquial technical term in industry, mining, and seafaring. ''Nigger'' as "defect" (a hidden problem) derives from "[[nigger in the woodpile]]", a US slave-era phrase denoting escaped slaves hiding in train-transported woodpiles.<ref name="Oxford English Reference Dictionary 1996 p.981">{{cite book |title=The Oxford English Reference Dictionary |edition=2nd |year=1996|page=981}}</ref><!--better to use {{cite dictionary}} and cite the individual entry--> In the 1840s, the ''[[Morning Chronicle]]'' newspaper report series ''[[London Labour and the London Poor]]'', by [[Henry Mayhew]], records the usages of both "nigger" and the similar-sounding word "niggard" denoting a false bottom for a grate.<ref>vol 2 p6</ref>

{{anchor|nigger lover}}In [[American English]], "nigger lover" initially applied to [[abolitionists]], then to white people sympathetic towards black Americans.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Herbst |first1=Philip |title=The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States |date=1997 |publisher=Intercultural Press |isbn=978-1-877864-97-1 |page=166 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UiZQH5gHuggC |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=September 24, 2016 |archive-date=September 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240915130531/https://books.google.com/books?id=UiZQH5gHuggC |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[portmanteau]] word ''[[wigger]]'' ('White' + 'nigger') denotes a white person emulating "street Black behavior", hoping to gain acceptance to the [[hip hop]], thug, and [[gangsta rap|gangsta]] sub-cultures. [[Norman Mailer]] wrote of the antecedents of this phenomenon in 1957 in his essay ''[[The White Negro]]''.

In [[Ukraine]], the word "zigger" (''[[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]]'': 'зіггер') is sometimes used as a derogatory term by [[Ukrainians]] to refer to [[Russian Armed Forces|Russian soldiers]] and those who follow the [[State propaganda in the Russian Federation|Russian government's propaganda]]. The word comes from replacing the first letter of "nigger" with a Z, which is a reference to the [[Z (military symbol)|"Z" tactical symbol]] used by Russian troops and [[Russian nationalism|Russian nationalists]].<ref>{{Citation |title=zigger |date=2025-02-04 |work=Wiktionary, the free dictionary |url=https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zigger |access-date=2025-02-06 |language=en}}</ref>  It is used as a more offensive alternative to calling someone a "[[vatnik]]."