What does black mean?

What does black mean?. The world's largest and most trusted free online dictionary: definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more.

What does black mean? - The Free Dictionary

Search

[n] the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)[v] make or become black(The smoke blackened the ceiling The ceiling blackened)[a] being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of a

black

black - The Free Dictionary

[n] the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)

[v] make or become black
(The smoke blackened the ceiling The ceiling blackened)

[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)

[n] total absence of light
(they fumbled around in total darkness in the black of night)

[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)

[n] British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799)

[a] marked by anger or resentment or hostility
(black looks black words)

[n] popular child actress of the 1930's (born in 1928)

[a] offering little or no hope
(the future looked black prospects were bleak Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult took a dim view of things)

[n] a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa)

[a] 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)

[n] (board games) the darker pieces

[a] (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 it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it a fateful error)

[n] black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)
(the widow wore black)

[a] (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood
(a face black with fury)

[a] extremely dark
(a black moonless night through the pitch-black woods it was pitch-dark in the cellar)

[a] harshly ironic or sinister
(black humor a grim joke grim laughter fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit)

[a] (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading
(black propaganda)

[a] distributed or sold illicitly
(the black economy pays no taxes)

[a] (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 an ignominious retreat inglorious defeat an opprobrious monument to human greed a shameful display of cowardice)

[a] (of coffee) without cream or sugar

[a] soiled with dirt or soot
(with feet black from playing outdoors his shirt was black within an hour)

Other vocabulary

b, b battery, b cell, b complex, b horizon, b lymphocyte, b vitamin, b-52, b-complex vitamin, b-flat clarinet, b-girl, b-horizon, b-meson, b-scan ultrasonography, b. b. king, b. f. skinner, b.c., b.c.e., b.o., b.t.u., b.th.u., ba, baa, baa-lamb, baader meinhof gang, baader-meinhof gang, baal, baal merodach, baas, baba, l, l'aquila, l'enfant, l-dopa, l-p, l-plate, l-shaped, l. m. montgomery, l. monocytogenes, l. ron hubbard, l. s. lowry, la, la crosse, la fayette, la fontaine, la paz, la plata, la rochefoucauld, la spezia, la tour, la-di-da, laager, lab, lab bench, lab coat, laban, labanotation, labdanum, label, labeled

Dictionary

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.

There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.

The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.