black

  • (a) 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
  • (a) of or belonging to a racial group having dark skin especially of sub-Saharan African origin
    • "a great people--a black people--...injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization"- Martin Luther King Jr.
  • (s) marked by anger or resentment or hostility
    • black looks
    • black words
  • (s) offering little or no hope
    • the future looked black
    • prospects were bleak
    • "Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult"- J.M.Synge
    • took a dim view of things
    bleak, dim,
  • (s) stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable
    • 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"-Thomas Hardy
    sinister, dark,
  • (s) (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin
    • 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"- Charles Darwin
    • "it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it"- Douglas MacArthur
    • a fateful error
    calamitous, disastrous, fatal, fateful,
  • (s) (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood
    • a face black with fury
    blackened,
  • (s) extremely dark
    • a black moonless night
    • through the pitch-black woods
    • it was pitch-dark in the cellar
    pitch-black, pitch-dark,
  • (s) harshly ironic or sinister
    • black humor
    • a grim joke
    • grim laughter
    • fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit
    mordant, grim,
  • (s) (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading
    • black propaganda
  • (s) distributed or sold illicitly
    • the black economy pays no taxes
    black-market, bootleg, contraband, smuggled,
  • (s) (used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame
    • "Man...has written one of his blackest records as a destroyer on the oceanic islands"- Rachel Carson
    • an ignominious retreat
    • inglorious defeat
    • an opprobrious monument to human greed
    • a shameful display of cowardice
    ignominious, inglorious, shameful, disgraceful, opprobrious,
  • (s) (of coffee) without cream or sugar
  • (s) soiled with dirt or soot
    • with feet black from playing outdoors
    • his shirt was black within an hour
    smutty,

Nouns

  • (n) the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white) blackness, inkiness,
  • (n) total absence of light
    • they fumbled around in total darkness
    • in the black of night
    lightlessness, pitch blackness, total darkness, blackness,
  • (n) British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799) Joseph Black,
  • (n) popular child actress of the 1930's (born in 1928) Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple Black,
  • (n) a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa) blackamoor, Black person, Negro, Negroid,
  • (n) (board games) the darker pieces
  • (n) black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)
    • the widow wore black

Verbs

Synonyms

blackness inkiness blacken nigrify melanise melanize lightlessness pitch blackness total darkness Joseph Black Shirley Temple Shirley Temple Black bleak dim blackamoor Black person Negro Negroid sinister dark calamitous disastrous fatal fateful blackened pitch-black pitch-dark mordant grim black-market bootleg contraband smuggled ignominious inglorious shameful disgraceful opprobrious smutty

Antonyms

whiteness white whiten

See also

dark

Words of close approximity

blab blae blah blat
blade blahs blain Blair Blake blame blanc bland blank blare blase blast blate blaze
Black Africa Black African Black American blackamoor black-and-blue black and gold garden spider Black and Tan black-and-tan black-and-tan coonhound black-and-tan terrier black and white black-and-white black Angus black apricot black archangel black art black ash black-backed gull blackback flounder blackball black bamboo black-barred black bass black bead black bean black bear black bearberry Blackbeard black bee black beech blackbeetle black belt blackberry blackberry bush blackberry-lily black bile black-billed cuckoo black bindweed black birch blackbird blackboard blackboard eraser blackbody black body black-body radiation blackbody radiation black book black box black bread black bream black bryony blackbuck black buck black buffalo Blackburn Blackburnian warbler black calla blackcap black-capped chickadee blackcap raspberry black caraway black carpet beetle black cat black catechu black cherry black cherry tree black-coated blackcock black cock black cohosh black comedy black cottonwood black crappie black-crowned night heron black currant black cypress pine blackdamp Black Death black diamond black disease black duck black economy black elder black elderberry blacken blackened Black English Black English Vernacular blackening blacken out black eye black-eyed pea black-eyed Susan black-eyed Susan vine blackface black felt cup blackfish black flag blackfly black fly