WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026
white′ man's′ bur′den, 
  1. the alleged duty of the white race to care for subject peoples of other races in its colonial possessions.
  • after a poem of the same title by Rudyard Kipling (1899)

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
White man's burden n
  1. old-fashioned the supposed duty of White people to bring education and Western culture to the inhabitants of their colonies

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