1. Being of the achromatic colour of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light
   "rich black soil"; "black leather jackets"; "as black as coal"
    
2. Extremely dark
   "a black moonless night"; "through the pitch-black woods";
   - pitch-black, pitch-dark
    
3. Of or belonging to a racial group especially of sub-Saharan African origin
   "a great people — a black people — … injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization"
    
4. Stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonourable
   "black deeds"; "a black lie"; "his black heart has concocted yet another black deed";
   - dark, sinister
    
5. Offering little or no hope
   "the future looked black";
   - bleak, dim
    
6. (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin
   "the stock market crashed on Black Friday";
   - calamitous, disastrous, fatal, fateful
    
7. Harshly ironic or sinister
   "black humour";
   - grim, mordant
    
8. Marked by anger, resentment or hostility
   "black looks"; "black words"
    
9. (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";
   - disgraceful, ignominious, inglorious, opprobrious, shameful
    
10. (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading
    "black propaganda"
     
11. Distributed or sold illicitly
    "the black economy pays no taxes";
    - bootleg, black-market, contraband, smuggled
     
12. (of coffee) without cream or sugar
    "She preferred her coffee black and strong"
     
13. (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood
    "a face black with fury";
    - blackened
     
14. Soiled with dirt or soot
    "his shirt was black within an hour"; "with feet black from playing outdoors";
    - smutty

1. The quality or state of being black like ink
   "The black of the night sky made stargazing ideal";
   - blackness, inkiness
    
2. Total absence of light
   "in the black of night";
   - total darkness, lightlessness, blackness, pitch blackness
    
3. Black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)
   "the widow wore black"
    
4. (board games) the darker pieces
   "In chess, black moves second"

1. Make or become black
   "The smoke blacked the walls of the kitchen";
   - blacken, melanize, melanise [Brit], nigrify [archaic]

1. A person of black African descent
   "The university celebrated the achievements of Black scientists throughout history";
    
2. British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799)
   - Joseph Black
    
3. Popular child actress of the 1930's (1928-2014)
   - Shirley Temple Black, Shirley Temple

Derived forms: blacked, blacking, Blacks, blacks, blackest, blacker

See also: African-American, Afro-American, angry, colored [US], colorful [US], coloured [Brit, Cdn], colourful [Brit, Cdn], covert, cross, dark, dirty, dishonorable [US], dishonourable [Brit, Cdn], evil, hopeless, illegal, negro [archaic], non-white, sarcastic, sarky [Brit, informal], soiled, unclean, undiluted, unfortunate, value

Type of: achromatic color [US], achromatic colour [Brit, Cdn], actor, actress, article of clothing, chemist, clothing, color [US], colour [Brit, Cdn], dark, darkness, discolor [US], discolour [Brit, Cdn], doer, duds [informal], habiliment [archaic], man, piece, threads [informal], togs [informal], vesture [archaic], wear, wearable, worker

Antonym: white

Part of: Black race, Negro race, Negroid race

Encyclopedia: Black, Mary