black (
http://definr.com/black)
adj 1: 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" [syn:
achromatic] [ant:
white]
2: 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"- Martin Luther
King Jr. [ant:
white]
3: marked by anger or resentment or hostility; "black looks";
"black words"
4: 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"-Thomas Hardy [syn:
dark,
sinister]
5: offering little or no hope; "the future looked black";
"prospects were bleak"; "Life in the Aran Islands has
always been bleak and difficult"- J.M.Synge; "took a dim
view of things" [syn:
bleak,
dim]
6: (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"- Charles
Darwin; "it is fatal to enter any war without the will to
win it"- Douglas MacArthur; "a fateful error" [syn:
calamitous,
disastrous,
fatal,
fateful]
7: (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood;
"a face black with fury" [syn:
blackened]
8: extremely dark; "a black moonless night"; "through the
pitch-black woods"; "it was pitch-dark in the celler"
[syn:
pitch-black,
pitch-dark]
9: harshly ironic or sinister; "black humor"; "a grim joke";
"grim laughter"; "fun ranging from slapstick clowning ...
to savage mordant wit" [syn:
grim,
mordant]
10: (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading; "black
propaganda"
11: distributed or sold illicitly; "the black economy pays no
taxes [syn:
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"- Rachel
Carson; "an ignominious retreat"; "inglorious defeat";
"an opprobrious monument to human greed"; "a shameful
display of cowardice" [syn:
disgraceful,
ignominious,
inglorious,
opprobrious,
shameful]
13: (of coffee) without cream or sugar
14: dressed in black; "a black knight"; "black friars"
15: soiled with dirt or soot; "with feet black from playing
outdoors"; "his shirt was black within an hour"
n 1: the quality or state of the achromatic color of least
lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white) [syn:
blackness] [ant:
white]
2: total absence of light; "they fumbled around in total
darkness"; "in the black of night" [syn:
total darkness,
lightlessness,
blackness,
pitch blackness]
3: British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who
formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat
(1728-1799) [syn:
Black,
Joseph Black]
4: popular child actress of the 1930's (born 1927) [syn:
Black,
Shirley Temple Black,
Shirley Temple]
5: a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose
ancestors came from Africa) [syn:
Black,
black person,
blackamoor,
Negro,
Negroid]
6: (chess or checkers) the darker pieces
7: black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning); "the widow wore
black"
v : make or become black; "The smoke blackened the ceiling";
"The ceiling blackened" [syn:
blacken,
melanize,
melanise,
nigrify] [ant:
whiten]