blackness
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black
(blăk)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.
Phrasal Verb: To become black.
black out
1. To lose consciousness or memory temporarily: blacked out at the podium.
2. To suppress (a fact or memory, for example) from conscious recognition: blacked out many of my wartime experiences.
3. To cover or make illegible with black marking: The names in the document had been blacked out.
4. To prohibit the dissemination of, especially by censorship: blacked out the news issuing from the rebel provinces.
5. To extinguish or conceal all lights that might help enemy aircraft find a target during an air raid.
6. To extinguish all the lights on (a stage).
7. To cause a failure of electrical power in: Storm damage blacked out much of the region.
8. To suppress the broadcast of (an event or program) from an area: blacked out the football game on local TV stations.
black′ish adj.
black′ly adv.
black′ness n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
black•ness
(ˈblæk nɪs)n.
1. the quality or state of being black.
2. the quality or state of being a black person.
[1300–50]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
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| Noun | 1. |  blackness - the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)achromatic color, achromatic colour - a color lacking hue; white or grey or black |
| 2. |  blackness - total absence of light; "they fumbled around in total darkness"; "in the black of night" |
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
blackness
noun darkness, dark, shade, gloom, dusk, obscurity, nightfall, murk, dimness, murkiness, duskiness, shadiness, melanism, swarthiness, inkiness, nigrescence, nigritude (rare) The twilight had turned to a deep blackness.
light, brilliance, brightness, lightness, radiance, luminosity, luminescence, incandescence, phosphorescence, effulgence, lambency
light, brilliance, brightness, lightness, radiance, luminosity, luminescence, incandescence, phosphorescence, effulgence, lambency
Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002
Translations
سَواد
čerňtemnota
sorti
karalıksiyahlık
Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007
Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995
black
(blӕk) adjective1. of the colour in which these words are printed. black paint.
2. without light. a black night; The night was black and starless.
3. dirty. Your hands are black!; black hands from lifting coal.
4. without milk. black coffee.
5. evil. black magic.
6. (often offensive. currently acceptable in the United States, South Africa etc) Negro, of African, West Indian descent.
7. (especially South Africa) coloured; of mixed descent (increasingly used by people of mixed descent to refer to themselves).
noun1. the colour in which these words are printed. Black and white are opposites.
2. something (eg paint) black in colour. I've used up all the black.
3. (often with capital. often offensive: currently acceptable in the United states, South Africa etc) a Negro; a person of African, West Indian etc descent.
verb to make black.
ˈblackness nounˈblacken verb
1. to make or become black. The sky blackened before the storm.
2. to make to seem bad. She blackened his character.
3. to clean with black polish. He blackened his boots.
black art/magic magic performed for evil reasons. He tries to practise black magic.
ˈblackbird noun a dark-coloured bird of the thrush family.
ˈblackboard noun a dark-coloured board for writing on in chalk (used especially in schools).
black box a built-in machine for automatic recording of the details of a plane's flight. They found the black box two miles away from the wreckage of the crashed plane.
the Black Death noun the plague that killed large numbers of people in Europe in the 14th to 18th centuries.
black eye an eye with bad bruising around it (eg from a punch). George gave me a black eye.
ˈblackhead noun a small black-topped lump in a pore of the skin, especially of the face.
ˈblacklist noun a list of people who are out of favour etc.
verb to put (a person etc) on such a list.
ˈblackmail verb to obtain money illegally from (a person), usually by threatening to make known something which the victim wants to keep secret.
noun the act of blackmailing. money got by blackmail.
ˈblackmailer nounBlack Maria (məˈraiə)
a prison van. The policeman took the three suspects to the police station in a Black Maria.
black market (a place for) the illegal buying and selling, at high prices, of goods that are scarce, rationed etc. coffee on the black market.
black marketeer a person who sells goods on the black market.
ˈblackout noun1. a period of darkness produced by putting out all lights. Accidents increase during a blackout.
2. a ban (on news etc). a blackout of news about the coup.
3. a period of unconsciousness. He has had several blackouts during his illness.
4. a brief, temporary loss of memory, as when an actor forgets his/her lines.
5. (also outage) a period of a general power failure.
6. (in the theatre) the putting out of the stage lights at the end of a scene etc.
black sheep a member of a family or group who is unsatisfactory in some way. My brother is the black sheep of the family.
ˈblacksmith noun a person who makes and repairs by hand things made of iron. The blacksmith made a new shoe for the horse.
black and blue badly bruised. After the fight the boy was all black and blue.
black out to lose consciousness. He blacked out for almost a minute.
in black and white in writing or print. Would you put that down in black and white?
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