being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light
<adj.all> 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
<adj.all> a great people--a black people--...injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization
marked by anger or resentment or hostility
<adj.all> black looks black words
offering little or no hope
<adj.all> the future looked black prospects were bleak Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult took a dim view of things
stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable
<adj.all> 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
(of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin
<adj.all> 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
(of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood
<adj.all> a face black with fury
extremely dark
<adj.all> a black moonless night through the pitch-black woods it was pitch-dark in the cellar
harshly ironic or sinister
<adj.all> black humor a grim joke grim laughter fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit
(used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame
<adj.all> 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
(of coffee) without cream or sugar
<adj.all>
soiled with dirt or soot
<adj.all> with feet black from playing outdoors his shirt was black within an hour
Black \Black\ (bl[a^]k), a. [OE. blak, AS. bl[ae]c; akin to Icel. blakkr dark, swarthy, Sw. bl["a]ck ink, Dan. bl[ae]k, OHG. blach, LG. & D. blaken to burn with a black smoke. Not akin to AS. bl[=a]c, E. bleak pallid. [root]98.] 1. Destitute of light, or incapable of reflecting it; of the color of soot or coal; of the darkest or a very dark color, the opposite of {white}; characterized by such a color; as, black cloth; black hair or eyes.
O night, with hue so black! --Shak.
2. In a less literal sense: Enveloped or shrouded in darkness; very dark or gloomy; as, a black night; the heavens black with clouds.
I spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud. --Shak.
3. Fig.: Dismal, gloomy, or forbidding, like darkness; destitute of moral light or goodness; atrociously wicked; cruel; mournful; calamitous; horrible. ``This day's black fate.'' ``Black villainy.'' ``Arise, black vengeance.'' ``Black day.'' ``Black despair.'' --Shak.
4. Expressing menace, or discontent; threatening; sullen; foreboding; as, to regard one with black looks.
Note: Black is often used in self-explaining compound words; as, black-eyed, black-faced, black-haired, black-visaged.
{Black act}, the English statute 9 George I, which makes it a felony to appear armed in any park or warren, etc., or to hunt or steal deer, etc., with the face blackened or disguised. Subsequent acts inflicting heavy penalties for malicious injuries to cattle and machinery have been called black acts.
{Black angel} (Zo["o]l.), a fish of the West Indies and Florida ({Holacanthus tricolor}), with the head and tail yellow, and the middle of the body black.
{Black antimony} (Chem.), the black sulphide of antimony, {Sb2S3}, used in pyrotechnics, etc.
{Black bear} (Zo["o]l.), the common American bear ({Ursus Americanus}).
{Black beast}. See {B[^e]te noire}.
{Black beetle} (Zo["o]l.), the common large cockroach ({Blatta orientalis}).
{Black bonnet} (Zo["o]l.), the black-headed bunting ({Embriza Sch[oe]niclus}) of Europe.
{Black canker}, a disease in turnips and other crops, produced by a species of caterpillar.
{Black cat} (Zo["o]l.), the fisher, a quadruped of North America allied to the sable, but larger. See {Fisher}.
{Black cattle}, any bovine cattle reared for slaughter, in distinction from dairy cattle. [Eng.]
{Black cherry}. See under {Cherry}.
{Black cockatoo} (Zo["o]l.), the palm cockatoo. See {Cockatoo}.
{Black copper}. Same as {Melaconite}.
{Black currant}. (Bot.) See {Currant}.
{Black diamond}. (Min.) See {Carbonado}.
{Black draught} (Med.), a cathartic medicine, composed of senna and magnesia.
{Black drop} (Med.), vinegar of opium; a narcotic preparation consisting essentially of a solution of opium in vinegar.
{Black earth}, mold; earth of a dark color. --Woodward.
{Black flag}, the flag of a pirate, often bearing in white a skull and crossbones; a signal of defiance.
{Black flea} (Zo["o]l.), a flea beetle ({Haltica nemorum}) injurious to turnips.
{Black flux}, a mixture of carbonate of potash and charcoal, obtained by deflagrating tartar with half its weight of niter. --Brande & C.
{Black Forest} [a translation of G. Schwarzwald], a forest in Baden and W["u]rtemburg, in Germany; a part of the ancient Hercynian forest.
{Black game}, or {Black grouse}. (Zo["o]l.) See {Blackcock}, {Grouse}, and {Heath grouse}.
{Black grass} (Bot.), a grasslike rush of the species {Juncus Gerardi}, growing on salt marshes, and making good hay.
{Black gum} (Bot.), an American tree, the tupelo or pepperidge. See {Tupelo}.
{Black Hamburg (grape)} (Bot.), a sweet and juicy variety of dark purple or ``black'' grape.
{Black horse} (Zo["o]l.), a fish of the Mississippi valley ({Cycleptus elongatus}), of the sucker family; the Missouri sucker.
{Black lemur} (Zo["o]l.), the {Lemurniger} of Madagascar; the {acoumbo} of the natives.
{Black list}, a list of persons who are for some reason thought deserving of censure or punishment; -- esp. a list of persons stigmatized as insolvent or untrustworthy, made for the protection of tradesmen or employers. See {Blacklist}, v. t.
{Black manganese} (Chem.), the black oxide of manganese, {MnO2}.
{Black Maria}, the close wagon in which prisoners are carried to or from jail.
{Black martin} (Zo["o]l.), the chimney swift. See {Swift}.
{Black moss} (Bot.), the common so-called long moss of the southern United States. See {Tillandsia}.
{Black oak}. See under {Oak}.
{Black ocher}. See {Wad}.
{Black pigment}, a very fine, light carbonaceous substance, or lampblack, prepared chiefly for the manufacture of printers' ink. It is obtained by burning common coal tar.
{Black plate}, sheet iron before it is tinned. --Knight.
{Black quarter}, malignant anthrax with engorgement of a shoulder or quarter, etc., as of an ox.
{Black rat} (Zo["o]l.), one of the species of rats ({Mus rattus}), commonly infesting houses.
{Black rent}. See {Blackmail}, n., 3.
{Black rust}, a disease of wheat, in which a black, moist matter is deposited in the fissures of the grain.
{Black sheep}, one in a family or company who is unlike the rest, and makes trouble.
{Black silver}. (Min.) See under {Silver}.
{Black and tan}, black mixed or spotted with tan color or reddish brown; -- used in describing certain breeds of dogs.
{Black tea}. See under {Tea}.
{Black tin} (Mining), tin ore (cassiterite), when dressed, stamped and washed, ready for smelting. It is in the form of a black powder, like fine sand. --Knight.
{Black walnut}. See under {Walnut}.
{Black warrior} (Zo["o]l.), an American hawk ({Buteo Harlani}).
Black \Black\, adv. Sullenly; threateningly; maliciously; so as to produce blackness.
Black \Black\, n. 1. That which is destitute of light or whiteness; the darkest color, or rather a destitution of all color; as, a cloth has a good black.
Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the suit of night. --Shak.
2. A black pigment or dye.
3. A negro; a person whose skin is of a black color, or shaded with black; esp. a member or descendant of certain African races.
4. A black garment or dress; as, she wears black; pl. (Obs.) Mourning garments of a black color; funereal drapery.
Friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like show death terrible. --Bacon.
That was the full time they used to wear blacks for the death of their fathers. --Sir T. North.
5. The part of a thing which is distinguished from the rest by being black.
The black or sight of the eye. --Sir K. Digby.
6. A stain; a spot; a smooch.
Defiling her white lawn of chastity with ugly blacks of lust. --Rowley.
{Black and white}, writing or print; as, I must have that statement in black and white.
{Blue black}, a pigment of a blue black color.
{Ivory black}, a fine kind of animal charcoal prepared by calcining ivory or bones. When ground it is the chief ingredient of the ink used in copperplate printing.
{Berlin black}. See under {Berlin}.
Black \Black\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Blacked}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Blacking}.] [See {Black}, a., and cf. {Blacken}.] 1. To make black; to blacken; to soil; to sully.
They have their teeth blacked, both men and women, for they say a dog hath his teeth white, therefore they will black theirs. --Hakluyt.
Sins which black thy soul. --J. Fletcher.
2. To make black and shining, as boots or a stove, by applying blacking and then polishing with a brush.
But then who, just a little later, is this little girl with her back towards us, in white dress and hat and her racquet in her hand and her long black pigtail falling down her back?
He quietly raised $200,000 for a black voter registration drive in the South that was instrumental in returning the Senate to Democratic control that fall.
Mayor David Dinkins condemned "eye for an eye" violence after a gang of blacks attacked three Vietnamese they mistook for Koreans, fracturing one man's skull blocks from a black boycott of two Korean stores.
Militant blacks have frequently attacked black policemen, accusing them of collaborating with the government and its apartheid policies.
Although economic growth is most crucial for the black majority, in the long run the white minority's own freedoms also depend on South Africa's economic survival.
He wouldn't comment on any political implications of naming persons from the black African state to the De Beers board.
Hundreds of people _ ranging from Ku Klux Klansmen carrying Rebel flags to black students singing "We Shall Overcome" _ gathered outside the Capitol for Reed's attempt.
Convoys of army trucks spew black smoke along the narrow roads.
As the grandson of a Georgia sharecropper, he shores up the administration's vulnerability among Southern senators with large black constituencies who feared retribution if they supported Mr. Bork, the crusty elitist.
Jackson's white support, up from about 5 percent four years ago, was bolstered by a nearly unanimous black vote, WNBC-TV and ABC News polls said.
The August incident and another in which a black man was shot to death by police sparked allegations of police racism and prompted City Council hearings on police brutality.
"Let's say I sat each of you down in front of a red button and a black button," he said.
The government wants to move Lawaiicamp residents to Sandkraal, about a mile further from George, which was established four years ago to be the area's official black township.
As in most of the preceding primaries, Mr. Jackson won the support of about nine in 10 black voters.
Schwerner and Goodman, white civil rights volunteers from New York, and Chaney _ a black civil rights worker from nearby Meridian _ were killed while working on a voter registration drive.
He, his father, and two other black residents who still want to remain anonymous went to A.P. Tureaud, an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
During Bush's long opening remarks and Gorbachev's briefer response, Mrs. Gorbachev stood ramrod straight, clutching a black handbag in her right hand.
He returned during a week in which scores of blacks died in the chronic factional fighting involving ANC supporters and rivals that has wracked black townships around Johannesburg for months.
The question of a successor immediately turned to whether Mr. Bush would nominate a black and whether the field of black conservatives was wide enough to choose from.
The question of a successor immediately turned to whether Mr. Bush would nominate a black and whether the field of black conservatives was wide enough to choose from.
Hastings, the first black federal judge in Florida, was acquitted in 1983 of charges that he solicited a bribe.
I am merely one who loves well-done films, be they in color or black and white.
Following protests and threats of pickets during the tournament, the club accepted a black insurance executive as an honorary member.
News that a protocol was signed between the CIS and India to supply 9,000 to 10,000 tonnes of black pepper made the Indian market firmer (Dollars 1,250 cif for MG-1).
All seven have held top positions in anti-apartheid groups around Port Elizabeth, one of the most militant black areas in the country.
The protesters, including women in black chadors, also chanted slogans against the United States, France and Israel.
Inkatha accuses the ANC of trying to monopolize power among black opposition groups as the country moves toward negotiations on a new constitution.
He has called for ending the apartheid system of racial segregation and for holding talks on allowing the black majority an equal political role with whites.
The swim club's pool policy became the talk of the town, though, after it refused to admit the black church members who were part of a group of 66 who had spent the day renovating a dilapidated home.
St. Croix is at least 75% black, and the looting seems to have been a very understandable attempt by the black poor to get a more equitable distribution of the island's resources.