yellow peril

yellow peril

noun Usually Offensive.
1.
the alleged danger that Western civilizations and populations could be overwhelmed by numerically superior Oriental peoples.
2.
the Oriental peoples regarded as presenting such a danger.

Origin:
1895–1900
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Yellow peril is always a great word to know.
So is bezoar. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
Collins
World English Dictionary
yellow peril
 
n
the power or alleged power of Asiatic peoples, esp the Chinese, to threaten or destroy the supremacy of White or Western civilization

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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American Heritage
Cultural Dictionary

Yellow Peril definition


A supposed threat to the United States posed by Japan and China. The phrase arose in the late nineteenth century, at a time when Japanese and Chinese immigration to America was meeting resistance and when Japan was growing as a military power. (See internment of Japanese Americans.)

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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