WordWeb Online

1. Being of the achromatic colour 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"
    
2. 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"
    
3. Marked by anger, resentment or hostility
   "black looks"; "black words"
    
4. Offering little or no hope
   "the future looked black";
   - bleak, dim
    
5. 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
    
6. (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin
   "the stock market crashed on Black Friday";
   - calamitous, disastrous, fatal, fateful
    
7. (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood
   "a face black with fury";
   - blackened
    
8. Extremely dark
   "a black moonless night"; "through the pitch-black woods";
   - pitch-black, pitch-dark
    
9. Harshly ironic or sinister
   "black humour";
   - grim, mordant
    
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. (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
     
13. (of coffee) without cream or sugar
     
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 the achromatic colour of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)
   - blackness, inkiness
    
2. Total absence of light
   "in the black of night";
   - total darkness, lightlessness, blackness, pitch blackness
    
3. (board games) the darker pieces
    
4. Black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)
   "the widow wore black"

1. Make or become black
   - blacken, melanize, melanise [Brit], nigrify [archaic]

1. Popular child actress of the 1930's (1928-2014)
   - Shirley Temple Black, Shirley Temple
    
2. A person with African ancestry
   - African-American, Negro, African American, Afro-American
    
3. British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799)
   - Joseph Black

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

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, non-white, sarcastic, sarky [Brit, informal], soiled, unclean, undiluted, unfortunate, value

Type of: achromatic color [US], achromatic colour [Brit, Cdn], actress, article of clothing, chemist, clothing, color [US], colour [Brit, Cdn], dark, darkness, discolor [US], discolour [Brit, Cdn], duds [informal], habiliment [archaic], individual, man, mortal, person, piece, somebody, someone, soul, threads [informal], togs [informal], vesture, wear, wearable

Antonym: white

Encyclopedia: Black, Mary