Green’s Dictionary of Slang

white trash n.

also ofay trash, trash
[lit. ‘white rubbish’]

(orig. US black) a derog. term for the poor white population of the Southern states; thus extended to non-US contexts; occas. sing. (see cit. 1885).

[US]Bangor Register 1 Aug. 1/4: (19th Century U.S. Newspapers) Georgetown, D C May 4. Nancy Swann, a lady of color whose mighty powers of witchcraft have made ‘de black niggers, and de poor white trash’ tremble, was indicted for practising in and upon one Peter Belt.
[UK]F. Kemble 6 Jan. in Clinton Fanny Kemble’s Journals (2000) 62: The slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as ‘poor white trash.’.
[US]‘Q.K. Philander Doesticks’ Doesticks Letters 314: The appointments generally at this place might not be considered very tasteful by the white trash.
[UK]G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 157: She was a bitter woman when vexed, and called me ‘beggar buckra,’ ‘poor white trash,’ ‘tam lily thief,’ and the like.
[US]Schele De Vere Americanisms 45: He [i.e. a very poor person] appears as Conch or Low Downer in North Carolina, and as Sandhiller or Poor White Trash in South Carolina and Georgia.
[US]Spirit of Age (Woodstock, VT) 15 May 1/4: Do yer s’pose I’se gwine to hab yer morals reptured by de white trash! [...] if I eber cotch yer munnicatin’ wid de white trash any mo’ [...] I’ll brack yer head.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 17/4: In law, a ‘white trash’ has about as much chance of getting justice in Hayti as a nigger has in the South Seas, as was well exemplified in the case of two blacking-bottle brudders who were […] charged with murdering a Frenchman, their benefactor.
[US]E. Custer Tenting on the Plains (rev. edn 1895) 107: Two wretched little ragamuffins – one, of the poor white trash, and another a negro.
[US]M.D. Landon Eli Perkins: Thirty Years of Wit 265: I jess know she ent ’soshiatin’ wid no sich wite trash like you is!
[UK]G.A. Sala London up to Date 61: [in UK] In this equally select and sumptuous place of resort for the aristocratic, the cultured, and the wealthy [...] the sky would rain black balls if such ‘poor white trash’ dared to come up for ballot.
[Aus]J. Furphy Such is Life 209: Ida, the white trash whose vocation was to wait on the narangies.
[UK]R.S. Baker Following the Colour Line 195: The descendants of the ‘poor white trash,’ who never owned slaves, have always hated the Negroes.
[US]S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 166: Oh! You poor white trash – you –.
[US]N.I. White Amer. Negro Folk-Songs 385: [reported from Auburn, Ala., 1915–1916] Oh little nigger baby, / Black face and shiny eyes, / Better than the po’ white trash / In the sweet bye and bye.
[US]C. McKay Banjo 160: What do them poah ofay trash in the Ditch know about doing the stuff in the big-style way it’s done back home?
[US]L. Hughes Mulatto in Three Negro Plays (1969) II i: And he’s runnin’ – runnin’ from po’ white trash which ain’t worth de little finger o’ nobody what’s got your blood in ’em, Tom.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 207: Good old Buck [...] dared challenge the supremacy of the white race by passing a couple of white trash in a dinky old rattletrap Ford.
[WI]G.B. Wallace ‘Sarvent Union’ in Bennett et al. Anancy Stories and Dialect Verse 95: But de ’oman dat employ mi / Is-a out-an’-out wite trash.
[US]J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 82: She’s trash, stupid, like all the rest of her family.
[US]W. Fisher Waiters 16: Poor white hungry trash. Nothin’ but a whole lot of work an’ no money.
[UK]J. Osborne Look Back in Anger Act II: What are you, you Welsh trash?
[US]J. Rechy City of Night 117: And I! don! know! what! Iamdoing! here! amongst all this: tuh-rash!
[US]H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 162: Algren’s book opens with one of the best historical descriptions of American white trash ever written.
[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 34: No Niggers or poor white trash.
[US]‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 47: Green was a slow-speaking con from Oklahoma, and usually hung around with hillbilly trash.
[UK]Sun. Times Rev. 21 Aug. 29: A Southern white boy who [...] represented everything their parents despised in ‘white trash.’.
[US]C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 278: Only a boor, white trash or worse, would ever question the man’s techniques.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 152: Just a bunch of lowlife bikers and white trash.
[UK]G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 97: [in UK] A commitment to the sadness of being white trash.
[UK]G. Iles Turning Angel 285: I said he’s white, not white trash.
[US]G. Pelecanos Way Home (2009) 256: Trash [...] Two white guys, oldee than us. Seems to me they’ve been in the [prison] system.
[UK]Observer 9 Jan. 15/2: Images of young, female, white trash.
[US]M. Lacher On the Bro’d 169: [S]he was trash and a slut and who needs to get with a slut anyway.
[US]S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 264: [His] picture should probably be next to white trash in the dictionary.
[US]D. Winslow ‘Broken’ in Broken 11: Selling to redneck bayou trash.
[US](con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 267: There’s no shitkickers/no white trash.