Colored People's Time en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Etymology
From its facetious treatment as a time zone.
Meanings
-
(US, dated, derogatory, qualifier:sometimes reclaimed, slang, uncountable) A notional system of time (or time zone) which others sometimes derogatorily ascribe to African Americans, and which they sometimes jocularly ascribe to themselves, to account for their supposed tendency to be tardy.
“Colored People's Time,” King said with a grin. “It always takes us longer to get where we're going.”
1967 January 27, Martin Luther King, Jr., quoted in Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound (1994), p. 338
Synonyms
Colored People Time · CP time · CPT · CP Time