early 14c., from lily + white (adj.); from 1903 with reference to whites-only segregation; 1961 as "irreproachable."

"person or thing that people hope will be very successful in the near future," 1911, originally in U.S. sporting use in reference to the quest for a white man capable of beating champion pugilist Jack Johnson.

"meat of poultry, pigs, etc.," as opposed to red meat, 1752, from white (adj.) + meat (n.). Earlier it meant "foods prepared from milk" (early 15c.). African-American vernacular sense of "white women as sex partners" is from 1920s.

"burdensome charge, inconvenient thing that one does not know how to get rid of," 1851, supposedly from the practice of the King of Siam of presenting one of the sacred albino elephants to a courtier who had fallen from favor; the gift was a great honor, but the proper upkeep of one was ruinously expensive.

type of North American deer, 1872, from white (adj.) + tail (n.).

"heated to full incandescence," 1820, from white (adj.) + hot (adj.). White heat is from 1710; figurative sense of "state of intense or extreme emotion" first recorded 1839.

"white with a tinge of gray or yellow;" as an adjective, "almost the same as white," 1927, from off (prep.) + white (n.).

as a symbol of cowardice, 1785, said to be from the time when cock-fighting was respectable, and when the strain of game-cock in vogue had no white feathers, so that "having a white feather, is proof he is not of the true game breed" [Grose].

Old English snawhwit (glossing Latin niveus), from snow (n.) + white (adj.). Similar formation in Dutch sneeuwwit, Middle Low German snewhit, German schneeweiss, Old Norse snæhvitr, Swedish snöhvit, Danish snehvid. The fairy tale is so-called from 1885, translating German Schneewittchen in Grimm; the German name was used in English by 1858.

by 1911, perhaps 1909, from white (adj.) + collar (n.).

The white collar men are your clerks; they are your bookkeepers, your cashiers, your office men. We call them the 'white collar men' in order to distinguish them from the men who work with uniform and overalls and carry the dinner pails. The boys over on the West side got that name for them. It was supposed to be something a little better than they were. [Malcolm McDowell, quoted in Chicago Commerce, June 12, 1914]

White-collar crime attested by 1957 (there is a white-collar criminaloids from 1934).