Usage Note
Mulato (feminine mulata) is a historical term from colonial Latin America for a person of mixed African and European descent. Today it is considered offensive in many contexts — preferred alternatives are mestizo (mixed ancestry broadly) or simply describing someone's background without a label. The word appears frequently in 19th-century literature and historical texts.
Examples
"El protagonista de la novela era un mulato libre."
Natural Translation
The protagonist of the novel was a free mulato.
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