COLUMBIA, S.C. — Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Saturday sought to tamp down anger over his praise for the bygone civility of a Senate that included notorious segregationists, stopping just short of an apology while asserting that his reference to never being called “boy” by one of the senators was not racial in nature.

Appearing on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s MSNBC program after addressing the South Carolina Democratic convention, Mr. Biden said he grasped why some may have taken offense to his reference but “to the extent that anybody thought that I meant something different, that is not what I intended.” He added: “I do understand the consequence of the word ‘boy.’ But it wasn’t said in any of that context at all.”

Appearing at a fund-raiser in New York City this past week, Mr. Biden touched off a dayslong controversy by recalling that the Senate was a more civil and productive body even when such racists as former Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia were serving. Mr. Biden recalled of Mr. Eastland, “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”

[We tracked down the 2020 Democrats and asked them the same set of questions. Watch them answer.]

But in his interview with Mr. Sharpton, with whom he has a warm relationship, Mr. Biden explained that the term was meant as a pejorative against him because he was only in his 30s when he served with Mr. Eastland, the longtime chair of the Judiciary Committee.