Definition of "black"

black

/blæk/

adjective
comparative blacker or more black, superlative blackest or most black
1. (of an object) Absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless.
2. (of a place, etc) Without light.
3. (sometimes capitalized) 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.)
  Quotations
  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 was not just the President of Southern Americans or white Americans. I was the President of all Americans. I believed that a huge injustice had been perpetrated for hundreds of years on every black man, woman, and child in the United States. I did not think that our nation could endure much longer as a viable democracy if that injustice were allowed to continue.
  1971, Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point‎, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, page 39
  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, page 10
  The country’s first black president, and its first president to reach adulthood after the Vietnam War and Watergate, Mr. Obama seemed like a digital-age leader who could at last dislodge the stalemate between those who clung to the government of the Great Society, on the one hand, and those who disdained the very idea of government, on the other.
  2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎
  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. (chiefly historical) Designated for use by those ethnic groups (as described above).
5. (card games, of a card) Of the spades or clubs suits. Compare red (“of the hearts or diamonds suit”)
6. Bad; evil; ill-omened.
  Quotations
  […] 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; towards the opening of the five first chapters of the first book of Moses called Genesis., London: N. Webb and W. Grantham, page 168
  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 whole matter, and that some people should be forced to produce the girl.
  1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
  She had seen so much of the blacker side of human nature that blackness no longer startled her as it should do.
  1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage
7. Expressing menace, or discontent; threatening; sullen.
  Quotations
  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 answer.
  1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
8. (of objects, markets, etc) Illegitimate, illegal or disgraced.
  Quotations
  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.
  Quotations
  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 Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iii], page 270, column 2
10. (Ireland, informal) Overcrowded.
11. (of coffee or tea) Without any cream, milk, or creamer.
12. (board games, chess) 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).
13. (politics) Anarchist; of or pertaining to anarchism.
14. (typography) Said of a symbol or character that is solid, filled with color. Compare white (“said of a character or symbol outline, not filled with color”).
15. (politics) Related to the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.
16. Clandestine; relating to a political, military, or espionage operation or site, the existence or details of which is withheld from the general public.
17. Occult; relating to something (such as mystical or magical knowledge) which is unknown to or kept secret from the general public.
  Quotations
  Pope Joan, who once occupied the throne of the Vatican, was reputed to be the blackest sorcerer of them all.
  1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 105
  But a hel-rúne was one who knew secret black knowledge – and the association of hell with the dead shows that the gloss in O.H.G. 'necromancia' is very close.
  2014, J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, page 168
18. (Ireland, now derogatory) Protestant, often with the implication of being militantly pro-British or anti-Catholic. (Compare blackmouth ("Presbyterian").)
  Quotations
  There is a district, comprehending Donegal, the interior of the county of Derry, and the western side of Tyrone, which is emphatically called by the people "the Black North," an expression not meant, as I conceive, to mark its greater exposure to the westerly winds, but rather its dreary aspect.
  1812, Edward Wakefield, An Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political‎, volume 2, page 737
  Even in the "black North"—in " Protestant Ulster"—Catholicity is progressing at a rate that must strike terror into its enemies, and impart pride and hope to the professors of the faith of our sainted forefathers.
  1841 March 20, "Intelligence; Catholicity in Ulster" Catholic Herald (Bengal), Vol. 2 No. 1, p. 27
  To the southern Nationalist the north was chiefly known as the home of the most rabid religious and political intolerance perhaps in the whole Christian world; it was designated by the comprehensive title of the 'Black North.'
  1886, Thomas Power O'Connor, The Parnell Movement: With a Sketch of Irish Parties from 1843, page 520
  Now April's brother, once also holding a commission in that regiment, was an Ulster Volunteer, her father a staunch, black Protestant, her family tremulously "loyal" to the country whose Parliament was turning them out of its councils.
  1914 May 27, "Review of The North Afire by W. Douglas Newton", The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality, volume 86, page t
  He [Sir John Henry Biggart] was personally amused at having once been called "a black bastard".
  1985 April, J. A. Weaver, “John Henry Biggart 1905-1979 - A portrait in respect and affection”, in Ulster Medical Journal, volume 54, number 1, page 1
  He had been playing Gaelic football for Lisnaskea Emmets, his local team in County Fermanagh, against a team from nearby Brookeborough, when someone from the opposing team called him a ‘black cunt’. ‘Black’, in this case, was a reference not to the colour of his skin but to his religion. It is short for ‘Black Protestant’, a long-standing term of sectarian abuse.
  2007 September 6, Fintan O'Toole, “Diary”, in London Review of Books, volume 29, number 17, page 35
19. Having one or more features (hair, fur, armour, clothes, bark, etc) that is dark (or black); in taxonomy, especially: dark in comparison to another species with the same base name.
noun
countable and uncountable, plural blacks
1. (countable and uncountable) The colour/color perceived in the absence of light, but also when no light is reflected, but rather absorbed.
  Quotations
  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 […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene iii]
2. (countable and uncountable) A black dye or pigment.
3. (countable) A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of black pigment.
4. (in the plural) Black cloth hung up at funerals.
  Quotations
  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. (sometimes capitalised, countable, often offensive) A member of descendant of any of various (African, Aboriginal, etc) ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin. (See usage notes.)
  Quotations
  "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 was now full, and Sharpe was for putting both the blacks in irons.
  1863, Charles Reade, Hard Cash‎
  Prize-winning books continue a trend toward increased representation of blacks, accounting for most of the books with exclusively black characters.
  2004, Anthony Joseph Paul Cortese, Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising, page 108
6. (informal) Blackness, the condition of belonging to or being descended from one of these ethnic groups.
7. (billiards, snooker, pool, countable) The black ball.
8. (baseball, countable) The edge of home plate.
9. (Britain, countable) A type of firecracker that is really more dark brown in colour.
10. (informal, countable) Short for blackcurrant, especially (chiefly UK) as syrup or crème de cassis used for cocktails.
11. (in chess and similar games, countable) The person playing with the black set of pieces.
12. (countable) Something, or a part of a thing, which is black.
  Quotations
  the black or sight of the eye
  1644, Kenelm Digby, Two Treatises
13. (obsolete, countable) A stain; a spot.
  Quotations
  defiling her white lawn of chastity with ugly blacks of lust
  1619, William Rowley, All's Lost by Lust
14. A dark smut fungus, harmful to wheat.
15. (US, slang) Marijuana.
verb
third-person singular simple present blacks, present participle blacking, simple past and past participle blacked
1. (transitive) To make black; to blacken.
  Quotations
  "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 you."
  1859, Oliver Optic, Poor and Proud; or, The Fortunes of Katy Redburn, a Story for Young Folks‎
  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
2. (transitive) To apply blacking to (something).
  Quotations
  […] 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, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson‎
3. (Britain, transitive) To boycott, usually as part of an industrial dispute.
  Quotations
  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, page 175