caucasian
adj.adj. relating to people of European, North African, or West Asian descent. You use this word to describe a person's racial or ethnic background.
adj. relating to the population of Europe, North Africa, and West Asia; used as a racial or ethnic classifier. Often capitalised in formal demographic contexts.
She is a Caucasian woman with blonde hair.
The census form asks you to select your ethnic group, including options like Caucasian or Asian.
Historical definitions of Caucasian have shifted significantly, moving from a broad biological classification to a more nuanced social and cultural category.
From Caucasus (“mountain range in Eastern Europe between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea”) + -ian (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘from, related to, or like’, or forming nouns with the sense ‘one from, belonging to, relating to, or like’). The anthropological sense (no longer regarded as scientific) was popularized by the German anthropologist and physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), based on the belief that the first humans originated from there. Noun sense 2 (“cocktail”) was popularized by the film The Big Lebowski (1998): see the quotation.
Often capitalised when referring to the racial group; lower case when used in geographical contexts.