black

Absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless.

Adjective

  1. Absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless.
    • The items around him were black in colour.
    • The scandal of a lie is in a manner lost and annihilated when diffused among several thousands; as a drop of the blackest tincture wears away and vanishes when mixed and confused in a considerable body of water; the...
    • Speaking of round sunglasses, these lightweight polarized ones and come in two shades of tortoiseshell as well as black and bronze. - 2023 June 26, Lauren Caruso and Jillian Tracy, “The 22 best sunglasses for summer,...

    Synonyms: dark swart

    Antonyms: white light

  2. Without light.

    Synonyms: dark gloomy blear caliginous cimmerian crepuscular darksome darkling dim dimpsy dingy dull dusky fuliginous infernal leaden lightless mirksome murky murksome obscure shady somber sombrous

    Antonyms: bright illuminated lit

  3. Belonging to or descended from any of various (African, Aboriginal, etc.) ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin. (See usage notes below.)
    • Somebody tell me, what can I do / Something is holding me back / Is it because I'm black? - 1969, “Is It Because I'm Black”, performed by Syl Johnson:
    • I believed that a huge injustice had been perpetrated for hundreds of years on every black man, woman, and child in the United States. - 1971, Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN,...
    • I am a young, light-skinned black woman, and truer words were never written of the problem we light-skinned blacks have had to live with. The article explains in-depth what it's like. - 1975 May, Terry Hodges, Ebony,...

    1. (US, UK, South Africa) Belonging to or descended from any of various sub-Saharan African ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin.

  4. Designated for use by those ethnic groups (as described above).
    • black drinking fountain; black hospital
  5. Of the spades or clubs suits.
    • I was dealt two red queens, and he got one of the black queens.

    Coordinate Terms: red

  6. Bad; evil; ill-omened.
    • black magic
    • […] what a black day would that be, when the Ordinances of Jesus Christ should as it were be excommunicated, and cast out of the Church of Christ. - 1655, Benjamin Needler, Expository notes, with practical observations;...
    • Nor were there wanting some, who, after the departure of Jenny, insinuated that she was spirited away with a design too black to be mentioned, and who gave frequent hints that a legal inquiry ought to be made into the...
  7. Expressing menace or discontent; threatening; sullen.
    • He shot her a black look.
    • The lassie had grace given her to refuse, but with a woeful heart, and Heriotside rode off in black discontent, leaving poor Ailie to sigh her love. He came back the next day and the next, but aye he got the same...
    • We see the impression that the perils of these unknown seas made on Minoan art in a clay seal impression that comes from Knossos. A sea monster, with head and jaws like a dog's, is rising from the waves and attacking a...
  8. Illegitimate, illegal, or disgraced.
    • Foodstuffs were rationed and, as in other countries in a similar situation, the black market was flourishing. - 1952, The Contemporary Review, volume 182, page 338:
  9. Foul; dirty, soiled.
    • Then trip him, that his heeles may kicke at Heauen, / And that his Soule may be as damn'd aud blacke / As Hell, whereto it goes. - c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of...
  10. Overcrowded.
  11. Without any cream, milk, or creamer.
    • Jim drinks his coffee black, but Ellen prefers it with creamer.
  12. Of or relating to the playing pieces of a board game deemed to belong to the "black" set (in chess, the set used by the player who moves second) (often regardless of the pieces' actual colour).
    • The black pieces in this chess set are made of dark blue glass.
    • Consequently, in the initial position the white pieces and pawns are placed on the first and second ranks; the black pieces and pawns on the eighth and seventh ranks. - 2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 21:

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *blakaz Proto-West Germanic *blak Old English blæc Middle English blak English black From Middle English blak, black, blake, from Old English blæc (“black, dark", also "ink”), from Proto-West Germanic *blak, from Proto-Germanic *blakaz (“burnt”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleg- (“to burn, shine”). See also Dutch blaken (“to burn”), Low German blak, black (“blackness, black paint, (black) ink”), Old High German blah (“black”); also compare Latin flagrāre (“to burn”), Ancient Greek φλόξ (phlóx, “flame”), Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga, “radiance”). Adjective sense 20 is a semantic loan from Cantonese 黑面 (hak1 min6, “to pull a long face, to scowl”).

Forms

blacker more black blackest most black blacke Black blk blak

Synonyms

atramental atramentous black black as a dog's guts black as coal black as Newgate's knocker black as night black as the ace of spades black as thunder coal black ebon inky jetty negro nigrous obsidian pitch-dark pitch-black pitchy raven sable sabled

Antonyms

white

Hyponyms

blackish nigrescent

Related

blackamoor blackavised blackberry blackbird blacken blackness forblack achromatic colorless dark black eye shiner jet ink ebony pitch soot charcoal sloe smut crow coal chimney sweep black color

Derived

All Blacks American black bear American black duck American black vulture antiblack anti-black Argentine black and white tegu Arizona black walnut Asian black bear Asian black birch Asian black rat beyond the black stump bible-black blaccent black abalone black ace Blackacre blackademic black advance black Africa black alder black alder winterberry black amber blackamoor

Noun

  1. The colour/color perceived in the absence of light, but also when no light is reflected, but rather absorbed.
    • Black is the badge of hell, / The hue of dungeons, and the suit of night. - c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
    • CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. This four component color system is standard for most types of color printing, since black is an ink color in printing but is simply the absence of color in video. -...

    Synonyms: blackness

    Antonyms: whiteness

  2. A black dye or pigment.

    Antonyms: white

  3. A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of black pigment.
  4. Black cloth hung up at funerals.
    • Groans, and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. - 1625, Francis Bacon, “Of Death”, in Essays:
  5. A member or descendant of any of various (African, Aboriginal, etc) ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin.
    • "How! They surely cannot pretend that the black is an Englishman?" "There are all kinds of Englishmen, black and white, when seamen grow scarce. […]" - 1863, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter XXIV, in Miles Wallingford:
    • But presently the negro seized the Hindoo by the throat; the Hindoo just pricked him in the arm with his knife, and the next moment his own head was driven against the side of the cabin with a stunning crack[…]The cabin...
    • Numa was about to charge—there was little time in which to compare various methods or weigh the probable results of any. And then a number of things happened, almost simultaneously—the lion sprang from his ambush toward...
  6. Blackness, the condition of belonging to or being descended from one of these ethnic groups.
    • black don't crack
  7. The black ball.
  8. The edge of home plate.
  9. A type of firecracker that is really more dark brown in colour.
  10. Blackcurrant syrup or crème de cassis used for cocktails.
    • Pernod and black; snakebite and black; cider and black
  11. The person playing with the black set of pieces.
    • At this point black makes a disastrous move.
    • 1...Qd3 2 Ne1 Nd2! wins since 3 Nxd3 Rxf1 mate while 3 Qxc7+ Kg6 only delays the end. The best White can do is 3 Qc3+ Qxc3 4 Rxc3 Rxe1 when Black also wins the Bf1 and will be two pieces up. - 2023 January 13, Leonard...
  12. Something, or a part of a thing, which is black.
    • the black or sight of the eye - 1644, Kenelme [i.e., Kenelm] Digby, Two Treatises. In the One of which, the Nature of Bodies; in the Other, the Nature of Mans Soule; is Looked into: In Way of Discovery, of the...

Forms

blacks blacke Black blk blak

Derived

acetylene black African black animal black Berlin black Black Act black and tan black and white black don't crack blackless Blackophobia blue-black boneblack Brunswick black carbon black channel black coal black cut to black eye black fade to black Frankfort black impingement black ivory black jet black jet-black

Verb

  1. To make black; to blacken.
    • "I don't want to fight; but you are a mean, dirty blackguard, or you wouldn't have treated a girl like that," replied Tommy, standing as stiff as a stake before the bully. "Say that again, and I'll black your eye for...
    • Ted, you can black your face, and dye your hair, and squint, and some fine day, sooner or later, somebody'll come along and blab the whole thing. - 1911, Edna Ferber, Buttered Side Down:
    • I saw red, and instead of a cab I fetched that policeman. Of course father did black his eye. - 1922, John Galsworthy, A Family Man: In Three Acts:

    Synonyms: blacken darken swarten

  2. To apply blacking to (something).
    • […] he must catch, curry, and saddle his own horse; he must black his own brogans (for he will not be able to buy boots). - 1853, Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin:
    • But in a moment he went to Greenidge's bedside, and said, shyly, in a low voice, "Shall I black your boots for you?" - 1861, George William Curtis, Trumps: A Novel:
    • Loving you, I could conceive no life sweeter than hers — to be always near you; to black your boots, carry up your coals, scrub your doorstep; always to be working for you, hard and humbly and without thanks. - 1911,...
  3. To boycott, usually as part of an industrial dispute.
    • The plants were blacked by the Transport and General Workers' Union and a consumer boycott was organised; both activities contributed to what the union saw as a victory. - 2003, Alun Howkins, The Death of Rural England,...

    Synonyms: blackball blacklist black boycott cancel

Forms

blacks blacking blacked blacke Black blk blak

Related

café noir calamander chernozem melancholy melena nigrescence nigrosine rouge et noir skean-dhu

Derived

blacker black out blackout bootblack shoeblack