black means absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless. It carries an Arena rating of 1494, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, black ranks #120 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,853 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #3,873 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #4,019 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
black is pronounced /blæk/.
Why “black” is a great word
Absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless. From Middle English blak, from Old English blæc ("dark, black"), from Proto-Germanic *blakaz ("burned"). Unlike "white," which reflects all wavelengths and stands for an impossible purity, or "gray," a middling, compromised shade, black is an absolute, a total surrender of illumination. It is the velvet void of a starless night sky, the liquid depth of a crow’s feather, and the profound stillness at the back of a shuttered room—the color of a finished thing, of silence made visible.
Etymology
From Middle English blak, black, blake, from Old English blæc (“black, dark", also "ink”), from Proto-West Germanic *blak, from Proto-Germanic *blakaz (“burnt”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleg- (“to burn, shine”). See also Dutch blaken (“to burn”), Low German blak, black (“blackness, black paint, (black) ink”), Old High German blah (“black”); also compare Latin flagrāre (“to burn”), Ancient Greek φλόξ (phlóx, “flame”), Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga, “radiance”). Adjective sense 20 is a semantic loan from Cantonese 黑面 (hak1 min6, “to pull a long face, to scowl”).
adj
- Absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless.e.g.“The items around him were black in colour.”
- Without light.
- 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.)e.g.“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:
- 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.); Belonging to or descended from any of various sub-Saharan African ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin.
- Designated for use by those ethnic groups (as described above).e.g.“black drinking fountain; black hospital”
- Of the spades or clubs suits.e.g.“I was dealt two red queens, and he got one of the black queens.”
- Bad; evil; ill-omened.e.g.“black magic”
- Expressing menace or discontent; threatening; sullen.e.g.“He shot her a black look.”
- Illegitimate, illegal, or disgraced.e.g.“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:
- Foul; dirty, soiled.e.g.“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 Iaggar
- Overcrowded.
- Without any cream, milk, or creamer.e.g.“Jim drinks his coffee black, but Ellen prefers it with creamer.”
- 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).e.g.“The black pieces in this chess set are made of dark blue glass.”
- Said of a symbol or character that is solid, filled with color.e.g.“Compare two Unicode symbols: ☞ (“WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX”); ☛ (“BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX”).”
- Of or pertaining to anarchism; anarchist.
noun
- The colour/color perceived in the absence of light, but also when no light is reflected, but rather absorbed.e.g.“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,
- A black dye or pigment.
- A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of black pigment.
- Black cloth hung up at funerals.e.g.“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:
- A member or descendant of any of various (African, Aboriginal, etc) ethnic groups which typically have dark pigmentation of the skin.e.g.“"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:
- Blackness, the condition of belonging to or being descended from one of these ethnic groups.e.g.“black don't crack”
- The black ball.
- The edge of home plate.
- A type of firecracker that is really more dark brown in colour.
- Blackcurrant syrup or crème de cassis used for cocktails.e.g.“Pernod and black; snakebite and black; cider and black”
- The person playing with the black set of pieces.e.g.“At this point black makes a disastrous move.”
- Something, or a part of a thing, which is black.e.g.“the black or sight of the eye” — 1644, Kenelme [i.e., Kenelm] Digby, Two Treatises. In the One of which, the Nature of Bodies; in the Other, the Nature of Mans Soule; is Looked into: In Way of Discovery, of the Immortality of Reasona
- A stain; a spot.e.g.“defiling her white lawn of chastity with ugly blacks of lust” — 1619, William Rowley, All's Lost by Lust:
- A dark smut fungus, harmful to wheat.
- Marijuana.e.g.“He pulled on the black, the tip of the filter hot and malleable between his lips, and felt a cool tingling coat the simmer in his chest and begin to eat away at it in small bites.” — 2008, Jesmyn Ward, Where the Line Bleeds, Bloomsbury (2018), page 48:
- The player moving the black pieces.e.g.“Unless the arbiter decides otherwise, ranks from White to Black shall be given the German numbers.” — 2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2025, page 24:
verb
- To make black; to blacken.
- To apply blacking to (something).e.g.“[…] 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:
- To boycott, usually as part of an industrial dispute.e.g.“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:
name
- A surname transferred from the nickname.
- A number of places in the United States:; A town in Geneva County, Alabama.
- A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Edwards County, Illinois.
- A number of places in the United States:; A township in Posey County, Indiana; from the surname.
- A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Reynolds County, Missouri.
- A number of places in the United States:; A township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania; from the surname.
- A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Mercer County and Wyoming County, West Virginia.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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