In the fictional universe of Harry Potter, 'mudblood' is a highly-offensive term for someone of muggle descent.

Many supposedly pure-blood wizards consider themselves superior to the rest. However, when the term is first used in the series, Hagrid points out that no wizard is truly pure-blood, as that would be pushing inter-breeding too far; there just aren't enough pure wizarding families to support pure-bloodedness for terribly long. Later in the series it's made apparent that most of the 'pure-blood' families are closely intertwined do to attemps to avoid soiling their blood. As commented by Sirius Black, 'Molly [Weasley] and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur [Weasley]'s something like my second cousin once removed', and he's also first cousin to Narcissa Malfoy née Black and Bellatrix Lestrange née Black, and first cousin once removed to Nymphadora Tonks.

Readers are first introduced to the insult of 'Mudblood' by Draco Malfoy in "Chamber of Secrets", when he calls Hermione a mudblood. Ron later tells Harry and Hermione, neither of whom had previously heard the term (because they were brought up in the Muggle world), that Mudblood is one of the worst insult that can be used, as it literally means 'dirty blood'.

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