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Definition of Black in English :

Define Black in English

Black meaning in English

Meaning of Black in English

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Black

see synonyms of black

Noun

1. black, blackness, inkiness

the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)

2. black, blackness, lightlessness, pitch blackness, total darkness

total absence of light

Example Sentences:
'they fumbled around in total darkness'
'in the black of night'

3. black, joseph black

British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799)

4. black, shirley temple, shirley temple black

popular child actress of the 1930's (born in 1928)

5. black, black person, blackamoor, negro, negroid

a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa)

6. black

(board games) the darker pieces

7. black

black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)

Example Sentences:
'the widow wore black'

Verb

8. black, blacken, melanise, melanize, nigrify

make or become black

Example Sentences:
'The smoke blackened the ceiling'
'The ceiling blackened'

Adjective

9. black

being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light

Example Sentences:
'black leather jackets'
'as black as coal'
'rich black soil'

10. black

of or belonging to a racial group having dark skin especially of sub-Saharan African origin

Example Sentences:
'a great people--a black people--...injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization'

11. black

marked by anger or resentment or hostility

Example Sentences:
'black looks'
'black words'

12. black, bleak, dim

offering little or no hope

Example Sentences:
'the future looked black'
'prospects were bleak'
'Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult'
'took a dim view of things'

13. black, dark, sinister

stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable

Example Sentences:
'black deeds'
'a black lie'
'his black heart has concocted yet another black deed'
'Darth Vader of the dark side'
'a dark purpose'
'dark undercurrents of ethnic hostility'
'the scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him'

14. black, calamitous, disastrous, fatal, fateful

(of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin

Example Sentences:
'the stock market crashed on Black Friday'
'a calamitous defeat'
'the battle was a disastrous end to a disastrous campaign'
'such doctrines, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory'
'it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it'
'a fateful error'

15. black, blackened

(of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood

Example Sentences:
'a face black with fury'

16. black, pitch-black, pitch-dark

extremely dark

Example Sentences:
'a black moonless night'
'through the pitch-black woods'
'it was pitch-dark in the cellar'

17. black, grim, mordant

harshly ironic or sinister

Example Sentences:
'black humor'
'a grim joke'
'grim laughter'
'fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit'

18. black

(of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading

Example Sentences:
'black propaganda'

19. black, black-market, bootleg, contraband, smuggled

distributed or sold illicitly

Example Sentences:
'the black economy pays no taxes'

20. black, disgraceful, ignominious, inglorious, opprobrious, shameful

(used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame

Example Sentences:
'Man...has written one of his blackest records as a destroyer on the oceanic islands'
'an ignominious retreat'
'inglorious defeat'
'an opprobrious monument to human greed'
'a shameful display of cowardice'

21. black

(of coffee) without cream or sugar

22. black, smutty

soiled with dirt or soot

Example Sentences:
'with feet black from playing outdoors'
'his shirt was black within an hour'

WordNet Lexical Database for English. Princeton University. 2010.

Black

see synonyms of black
adjective
1. 
of the colour of jet or carbon black, having no hue due to the absorption of all or nearly all incident light
Compare white (sense 1)
2. 
without light; completely dark
3. 
without hope or alleviation; gloomy
the future looked black
4. 
very dirty or soiled
black factory chimneys
5. 
angry or resentful
she gave him black looks
6. 
(of a play or other work) dealing with the unpleasant realities of life, esp in a pessimistic or macabre manner
black comedy
7. 
(of coffee or tea) without milk or cream
8. 
causing, resulting from, or showing great misfortune
black areas of unemployment
9. 
a. 
wicked or harmful
a black lie
b. 
(in combination)
black-hearted
10. 
causing or deserving dishonour or censure
a black crime
11. 
(of the face) purple, as from suffocation
12. British
(of goods, jobs, works, etc) being subject to boycott by trade unionists, esp in support of industrial action elsewhere
noun
13. 
a black colour
14. 
a dye or pigment of or producing this colour
15. 
black clothing, worn esp as a sign of mourning
16. chess, draughts
a. 
a black or dark-coloured piece or square
b. (usually capital)
the player playing with such pieces
17. 
complete darkness
the black of the night
18. 
a black ball in snooker, etc
19. 
(in roulette and other gambling games) one of two colours on which players may place even bets, the other being red
20.  in the black
21. archery
a black ring on a target, between the outer and the blue, scoring three points
verb
22.  another word for blacken
23. (transitive)
to polish (shoes, etc) with blacking
24. (transitive)
to bruise so as to make black
he blacked her eye
25. (transitive) British, Australian and New Zealand
(of trade unionists) to organize a boycott of (specified goods, jobs, work, etc), esp in support of industrial action elsewhere
adjective
1. 
(of a person) belonging to a population having dark pigmentation of the skin
2. 
of or relating to a Black person or Black people
a Black neighbourhood
noun offensive
3. 
a member of a human population having dark pigmentation of the skin
noun
1. 
Sir James (Whyte). 1924–2010, British biochemist. He discovered beta-blockers and drugs for peptic ulcers: Nobel prize for physiology or medicine 1988
2. 
Joseph. 1728–99, Scottish physician and chemist, noted for his pioneering work on carbon dioxide and heat

Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers

Black

see synonyms of black
Hugo (La Fayette)1886-1971; U.S. jurist: associate justice, Supreme Court (1937-71)
adjective
1. 
opposite to white; of the color of coal or pitch
see also color
2.  [sometimes B-]
a. 
designating or of any of the dark-skinned traditional inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, or Melanesia or their descendants in other parts of the world
b. 
by, for, or about black people as a group; specif., in the U.S., by, for, or about black Americans
black studies
see also African-American
3. 
a. 
totally without light; in complete darkness
b. 
very dark
4. 
without cream, milk, etc.
said of coffee
5. 
soiled; dirty
6. 
wearing black clothing
7. 
evil; wicked; harmful
8. 
disgraceful
9. 
full of sorrow or suffering; sad; dismal; gloomy
10. 
disastrous
11. 
sullen or angry
black looks
12. 
without hope
a black future
13. 
inveterate; confirmed; deep-dyed
a black villain
14. 
humorous or satirical in a morbid or cynical way
black comedy
15. 
secret; covert; hidden
a CIA black operator
noun
16. 
a. 
black color
b. 
a black pigment, paint, or dye
17. 
any substance or thing that is black
18. 
a spot or area that is black
19. 
black clothes, esp. when worn in mourning
20.  [sometimes B-]
a member of a black people
21. 
complete darkness or absence of light
22.  Chess
the player or side with the black or darker-colored pieces
verb transitive, verb intransitive
23. 
to make black; blacken
24. 
to polish with blacking

Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition. Copyright © 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

Black

see synonyms of black
adj. black·er, black·est
1. Being of the color black, producing or reflecting comparatively little light and having no predominant hue.
2. Having little or no light: a black, moonless night.
3. also Black
a. Of or belonging to a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin: the black population of South Africa.
b. Of or belonging to an American ethnic group descended from African peoples having dark skin; African-American.
4. Very dark in color: rich black soil; black, wavy hair.
5. Being a trail, as for skiing, marked with a sign having a black diamond, indicating a high level of difficulty.
6. Soiled, as from soot; dirty: feet black from playing outdoors.
7. Evil; wicked: the pirates' black deeds.
8. Cheerless and depressing; gloomy: black thoughts.
9. Being or characterized by morbid or grimly satiric humor: a black comedy.
10. Marked by anger or sullenness: gave me a black look.
11. Attended with disaster; calamitous: a black day; the stock market crash on Black Friday.
12. Deserving of, indicating, or incurring censure or dishonor: "Man ... has written one of his blackest records as a destroyer on the oceanic islands" (Rachel Carson).
13. Wearing clothing of the darkest visual hue: the black knight.
14. Served without milk or cream: black coffee.
15. Appearing to emanate from a source other than the actual point of origin. Used chiefly of intelligence operations: black propaganda; black radio transmissions.
16. Disclosed, for reasons of security, only to an extremely limited number of authorized persons; very highly classified: black programs in the Defense Department; the Pentagon's black budget.
17. Chiefly British Boycotted as part of a labor union action.
n.
1.
a. The achromatic color value of minimum lightness or maximum darkness; the color of objects that absorb nearly all light of all visible wavelengths; one extreme of the neutral gray series, the opposite being white. Although strictly a response to zero stimulation of the retina, the perception of black appears to depend on contrast with surrounding color stimuli.
b. A pigment or dye having this color value.
2. Complete or almost complete absence of light; darkness.
3. Clothing of the darkest hue, especially such clothing worn for mourning.
4. also Black
a. A member of a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin.
b. An American descended from peoples of African origin having brown to black skin; an African American.
5. Something that is colored black.
6. Games
a. The black-colored pieces, as in chess or checkers.
b. The player using these pieces.
7. The condition of making or operating at a profit: worked hard to get the business back into the black.
v. blacked, black·ing, blacks
v.tr.
1. To make black: blacked their faces with charcoal.
2. To apply blacking to: blacked the stove.
3. Chiefly British To boycott as part of a labor union action.
v.intr.
To become black.
American actress and public official. As Shirley Temple she was an immensely popular child actress of the 1930s, starring in films such as Bright Eyes (1934). As an adult she held several diplomatic positions, including ambassador to Ghana (1974-1976).
British chemist who rediscovered carbon dioxide (1756) and formulated the concepts of latent heat and specific heat.
British pharmacologist. He shared a 1988 Nobel Prize for developing drugs to treat heart disease and stomach and duodenal ulcers.
American jurist who served as an associate justice of the US Supreme Court (1937-1971). He is noted for his ardent support of civil rights.

The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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