Colourism

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Discrimination or prejudice that privileges people with lighter skin over those with darker skin within the same racial or ethnic community
2. A social bias in which lighter complexions are treated as more desirable, granting advantages to those with paler skin among people of the same background
3. The preference for fairer skin within a community, which results in unequal treatment and opportunity based on how light or dark a person's skin appears

Etymology: Colourism is a plain compound: "colour" with the suffix "-ism," which in English forms nouns naming a doctrine, practice, or prejudice, as in "racism" or "sexism." The formation follows that pattern exactly, so the word's history is largely the history of its parts. "Colour" comes from Latin "color" through Old French, and "-ism" comes from Greek "-ismos" by way of Latin and French. The compound describes discrimination that privileges lighter skin over darker skin, including within the same ethnic or racial community. Its meaning is built directly from the two elements, with the suffix carrying the sense of a systematic prejudice rather than a single act. The word was formed on the same model as older terms for prejudice based on other characteristics, which is why it reads so transparently to speakers of English.

Synonyms: pigmentocracy, skin-tone bias