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Definition of 'black'

Noun

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

Verb

  1. make or become black; "The smoke blackened the ceiling"; "The ceiling blackened"
       Synonyms: blacken melanize melanise nigrify
       Antonyms: whiten white

Adjective

  1. 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"
       Antonyms: white
  2. 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.
       Antonyms: white
  3. marked by anger or resentment or hostility; "black looks"; "black words"
  4. 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
       Synonyms: dark sinister
  5. 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"
       Synonyms: bleak dim
  6. (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"
       Synonyms: calamitous disastrous fatal fateful
  7. (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood; "a face black with fury"
       Synonyms: blackened
  8. extremely dark; "a black moonless night"; "through the pitch-black woods"; "it was pitch-dark in the cellar"
       Synonyms: pitch-black pitch-dark
  9. harshly ironic or sinister; "black humor"; "a grim joke"; "grim laughter"; "fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit"
       Synonyms: grim mordant
  10. (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading; "black propaganda"
  11. distributed or sold illicitly; "the black economy pays no taxes"
       Synonyms: bootleg black-market contraband smuggled
  12. (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"
       Synonyms: disgraceful ignominious inglorious opprobrious shameful
  13. (of coffee) without cream or sugar
  14. dressed in black; "a black knight"; "black friars"
  15. soiled with dirt or soot; "with feet black from playing outdoors"; "his shirt was black within an hour"
       Synonyms: smutty


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