Black

proper nounadjectivenountop 1 000 in film dialogue

A surname transferred from the nickname.

proper noun

1
A surname transferred from the nickname.
2
A number of places in the United States: A town in Geneva County, Alabama.
3
A number of places in the United States: An unincorporated community in Edwards County, Illinois.
4
A number of places in the United States: A township in Posey County, Indiana; from the surname.
5
A number of places in the United States: An unincorporated community in Reynolds County, Missouri.
6
A number of places in the United States: A township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania; from the surname.
7
A number of places in the United States: An unincorporated community in Mercer County and Wyoming County, West Virginia.

Etymology

From Middle English blak (“black”). Also a variant of Blake, from Old English blāc (“pale”) and Blanc, from Old French blanc (“white”).

adjective

1
Variant of blackAlternative letter-case form of black (“of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin”).
It contained an article written by Lacy Banko summarizing the work of Dr. Herbert Hendin, who had done a comparative study on suicide among Black people in the major American cities. Dr. Hendin found that the suicide rate among Black men between the ages of nineteen and thirty-five had doubled in the past ten to fifteen years, surpassing the rate for whites in the same age range.
A group of Black women came in later but only observed from the sidelines.
Hundreds of Seattle protesters came together Saturday to voice the sadness and fury that has spread across the country over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after being pinned beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer for almost nine minutes.
By 2016, however, a divide that started appearing in the preceding few years came into full relief—that year, 29% of nonwhite liberals (28% of nonwhite Democrats) and 38% of Black liberals (34% of Black Democrats), disagreed that “Blacks should work their way up without special favors.”

Etymology

Capitalized to follow the usual capitalization patterns for ethnic groups (compare e.g. Hispanic, Arab), and also, perhaps, as a way to explicitly distinguish it from the color sense, which is not capitalized outside proper nouns.

noun

1
The player moving the black pieces.
Unless the arbiter decides otherwise, ranks from White to Black shall be given the German numbers.
2
Variant of blackAlternative letter-case form of black (“person having dark pigmentation of the skin”).
By 2016, however, a divide that started appearing in the preceding few years came into full relief—that year, 29% of nonwhite liberals (28% of nonwhite Democrats) and 38% of Black liberals (34% of Black Democrats), disagreed that “Blacks should work their way up without special favors.”

Forms

plural: Blacks

BJ · Billy Jean, Bobby Joe or another name with those initials,…blabbering · Foolish or incoherent talk; blather; babble.black · Absorbing all light and reflecting none; dark and hueless.

Black · A surname transferred from the nickname.

blacked · Colored black.Blackie · A surname.blackjack · A common gambling card game in casinos, where the object is…

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.