Replies

Very few people are “caucasian” but the term holds in America.

Cau·ca·sian
adjective
1. Anthropology. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of one of the traditional racial divisions of humankind, marked by fair to dark skin, straight to tightly curled hair, and light to very dark eyes, and originally inhabiting Europe, parts of North Africa, western Asia, and India: no longer in technical use.

2. of or pertaining to the Caucasus mountain range.

3. of or related to the non-Indo-European, non-Turkic languages of the Caucasus region.

noun
4. Anthropology. a member of the peoples traditionally classified as the Caucasian race, esp. those peoples having light to fair skin: no longer in technical use.

5. a native of Caucasia.

[Origin: 1800-10)

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Â© Random House, Inc. 2006.

Cauc·a·sian

adj.

Anthropology Of or being a human racial classification distinguished especially by very light to brown skin pigmentation and straight to wavy or curly hair, and including peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and India. See Usage Note at race1.
Of or relating to a racial group having white skin, especially one of European origin; white.
Of or relating to the Caucasus region or its peoples, languages, or cultures.

Of or relating to a group of three language families spoken in the region of the Caucasus mountains, including Chechen, Abkhaz, and the Kartvelian languages.

n.
Anthropology A member of the Caucasian racial classification.

A native or inhabitant of the Caucasus.
The Caucasian language family.

Caucasian

1807, from Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and Caspian seas; applied to the “white” race 1795 (in Ger.) by Ger. anthropologist Johann Blumenbach, because their supposed ancestral homeland lay there; since abandoned as a historical/anthropological term. Lit. meaning “resident or native of the Caucasus” is from 1843. The mountain range name is from Gk. kaukhasis, from Scythian kroy-khasis, lit. “(the mountain) ice-shining.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

With the turn away from racial theory in the late 20th century, the term “Caucasian” as a racial classification fell into disuse in Europe. Consequently, in the United Kingdom, the term “Caucasian” is more likely than in the United States to describe people from the Caucasus, although it may still be used as a racial classification.[27] Sarah A Tishkoff and Kenneth K Kidd state, “Despite disagreement among anthropologists, this classification remains in use by many researchers, as well as lay people.”[28] According to Leonard Lieberman, Rodney C. Kirk, and Alice Littlefield, the concept of race has all but been completely rejected by modern mainstream anthropology.[29] In 2003, United States National Library of Medicine stopped using the term Caucasian race in favor of the term “European”.[30] In the United States, the term “Caucasian” has been mainly a distinction based on looking white, and being descended from a people who are “from Europe” .