Oreo

Brand name of unknown origin, trademarked by National Biscuit Company on 14 March 1912. See the Etymology section of Wikipedia's Oreo article for various theories. In reference to well-assimilated blacks, derived from the slur that they are "black on the outside, white on the inside".

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɔɹioʊ/

• Audio (AU)

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Oreo (plural Oreos)

1. (foods) A cookie made of two wafers joined with a sugary filling, particularly a Nabisco cookie with two alkalized cocoa-powder wafers around a white creme filling.
   • 1984 December, Michael Norman, "Junk Food", Cincinnati, p. 67:

     The Oreo is really an antidepressant drug disguised as a cookie. You lost your job? Eat a bag of Oreos... There are two ways to eat Oreos. Kids like to pull the chocolate wafers apart and eat the sweat, creamy middle first. Adults dunk them in milk.

   • 2022 April 19, Jennifer Chu, "MIT Engineers Introduce the Oreometer", MIT News:

     While Oreo cream may not appear to possess fluid-like properties, it is considered a "yield stress fluid"—a soft solid when unperturbed that can start to flow under enough stress... Curious as to whether other had explored the connection between Oreos and rheology, Owens found mention of a 2016 Princeton University study in which physicists first reported that indeed, when twisting Oreos by hand, the cream almost always came off on one wafer.

2. (US, derogatory, ethnic slur) A black person considered to have overly assimilated to white culture, a black race traitor.
   • 1971, Iceberg Slim, The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim, Holloway House:

     She's a pure Oreo. You know, like the cookie, black outside and white inside.

• (cookie): Oreo cookie
• (black person assimilated into white culture): See Uncle Tom

• (cookie): cookie, snack, junk food
• (black person assimilated into white culture): race traitor

• (black person assimilated into white culture): coconut, egg, Twinkie, banana; wigger

• -eroo, oo-er, ooer