black

Plural: blacks

Noun

• the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)
• total absence of light
  • "in the black of night"
• British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799)
• popular child actress of the 1930's (born in 1928)
• a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa)
• (board games) the darker pieces
• black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)
  • "the widow wore black"
• The colour/color perceived in the absence of light, but also when no light is reflected, but rather absorbed.
• A black dye or pigment.
• A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of black pigment.
• Black cloth hung up at funerals.
• A member of descendant of any of various (African, Aboriginal, etc) ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin.
• Blackness, the condition of belonging to or being descended from one of these ethnic groups.
• The black ball.
• The edge of home plate.
• A type of firecracker that is really more dark brown in colour.
• Ellipsis of blackcurrant.
• Ellipsis of blackcurrant.
• Blackcurrant as syrup or crème de cassis used for cocktails.
• The person playing with the black set of pieces.
• Something, or a part of a thing, which is black.
• A stain; a spot.
• A dark smut fungus, harmful to wheat.
• Marijuana.

Verb

Verb Forms: blacked, blacking, blacks

• To make something black; to darken or obscure.
• make or become black
  • "The smoke blackened the ceiling"
  • "The ceiling blackened"
• To make black; to blacken.
• To apply blacking to (something).
• To boycott, usually as part of an industrial dispute.

Adjective

• Of the darkest color, absorbing all visible light.
• being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light
  • "black leather jackets"
  • "as black as coal"
  • "rich black soil"
• of or belonging to a racial group having dark skin especially of sub-Saharan African origin; - Martin Luther King Jr.
  • "a great people--a black people--...injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization"

Adjective Satellite

• marked by anger or resentment or hostility
  • "black looks"
  • "black words"
• offering little or no hope; ; ; - J.M.Synge
  • "the future looked black"
• stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable; ; ; ; ; ; ; -Thomas Hardy
  • "black deeds"
  • "a black lie"
  • "his black heart has concocted yet another black deed"
• (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin; ; ; ; - Charles Darwin; - Douglas MacArthur
  • "the stock market crashed on Black Friday"
• (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood
  • "a face black with fury"
• extremely dark
  • "a black moonless night"
  • "through the pitch-black woods"
• harshly ironic or sinister
  • "black humor"
• (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading
  • "black propaganda"
• distributed or sold illicitly
  • "the black economy pays no taxes"
• (used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame; - Rachel Carson
  • "Man...has written one of his blackest records as a destroyer on the oceanic islands"
• (of coffee) without cream or sugar
• soiled with dirt or soot
  • "with feet black from playing outdoors"
  • "his shirt was black within an hour"

Adj

• Absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless.
• Without light.
• 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.)
• 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.)
• Belonging to or descended from any of various sub-Saharan African ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin.
• Designated for use by those ethnic groups (as described above).
• Of the spades or clubs suits.
• Bad; evil; ill-omened.
• Expressing menace or discontent; threatening; sullen.
• Illegitimate, illegal, or disgraced.
• Foul; dirty, soiled.
• Overcrowded.
• Without any cream, milk, or creamer.
• 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).
• Said of a symbol or character that is solid, filled with color.
• Of or pertaining to anarchism; anarchist.
• Related to the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.
• Clandestine; relating to a political, military, or espionage operation or site, the existence or details of which is withheld from the general public.
• Occult; relating to something (such as mystical or magical knowledge) which is unknown to or kept secret from the general public.
• Protestant, often with the implication of being militantly pro-British or anti-Catholic. (Compare blackmouth ("Presbyterian").)
• Having one or more features (hair, fur, armour, clothes, bark, etc.) that is dark (or black).
• Having one or more features (hair, fur, armour, clothes, bark, etc.) that is dark (or black).
• Dark in comparison to another species with the same base name.
• Sullen and solemn; bad-tempered and unhappy.

Examples

• 5 percent of the Defense Department funding will go to black projects.
• After the election, the parties united in a black-yellow alliance.
• At this point black makes a disastrous move.
• black birch; black locust; black rhino
• black don't crack
• black drinking fountain; black hospital
• black magic
• black operations/black ops; black room; black site
• Compare two Unicode symbols: ☞ (“WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX”); ☛ (“BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX”).
• He shot her a black look.
• I tried to BLACK out his high-scoring letters with my own defensive plays.
• I was dealt two red queens, and he got one of the black queens.
• Jim drinks his coffee black, but Ellen prefers it with creamer.
• Pernod and black; snakebite and black; cider and black
• the black knight; black bile
• the Black North
• The black pieces in this chess set are made of dark blue glass.
• The BLACK tiles seemed to vanish on the dark game board, making them hard to use.
• The items around him were black in colour.
• the Royal Black Institution

Synonyms

Black person, black-market, blackamoor, blacken, blackened, blackness, bleak, bootleg, calamitous, contraband, dark, dim, disastrous, disgraceful, fatal, fateful, grim, ignominious, inglorious, inkiness, Joseph Black, lightlessness, melanise, melanize, mordant, Negro, Negroid, nigrify, opprobrious, pitch blackness, pitch-black, pitch-dark, shameful, Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple Black, sinister, smuggled, smutty, total darkness, atramental, atramentous, black, black as Newgate's knocker, black as a dog's guts, black as coal, black as night, black as the ace of spades, black as thunder, blackball, blacklist, blear, boycott, caliginous, cancel, cimmerian, coal black, crepuscular, darken, darkling, darksome, dimpsy, dingy, dull, dusky, ebon, fuliginous, gloomy, inky, jetty, leaden, lightless, mirksome, murksome, murky, negro, nigrous, obscure, obsidian, pitchy, raven, sable, sabled, shady, somber, sombrous, stygian, sunless, swart, swarten, swarthy, tenebrous, twilightish, umbrageous, unilluminated

Antonyms

white, whiten, bright, illuminated, light, lit, whiteness

Related Words

Vantablack, achromatic, atrous, black color, black eye, blackamoor, blackavised, blackberry, blackbird, blacken, blackness, blue, brown, café noir, calamander, charcoal, chernozem, chimney sweep, chocolate black, coal, colly, colorless, corbeau, crow, crow-black, dark, dark colour, ebony, forblack, gray, green, grey, ink, inky, jet, licorice, melancholy, melena, midnight, nigrescence, nigrosine, nigrous, obsidian, onyx, orange, outer space, perse, person of color, pink, pitch, pitch-black, purple, raisin black, raven, red, rouge et noir, sable, shiner, skean-dhu, slate black, sloe, smoky black, smut, soot, violet, white, yellow

Anagrams of black