Black

See also: black and bläck

English

Pronunciation

• Audio

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Etymology 1

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

Proper noun

Black (countable and uncountable, plural Blacks)

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

Derived terms

• Blackian

Statistics

• According to the 2010 United States Census, Black is the 174^th most common surname in the United States, belonging to 154,738 individuals. Black is most common among White (74.63%) and Black (19.00%) individuals.

Etymology 2

Adjective

Black (not comparable)

1. (chiefly Canada, US, often UK) Alternative letter-case form of black (“of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin”)
   • 1973, Huey P. Newton, J. Herman Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, →ISBN, page 3:

     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.

   • 1986, Chaya Shalom, “The only dyke from Israel”, in Off Our Backs, volume 16, number 8, →JSTOR, page 26:

     A group of Black women came in later but only observed from the sidelines.

   • 1999, Geoffrey K. Pullum, “African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes”, in Rebecca S. Wheeler, editor, The Workings of Language, →ISBN, page 40:

     Buried among the jargon of the announcement was a mention of a name for AAVE, suggested by a Black scholar in 1975^[sic] but never adopted by linguists: Ebonics. That word, concocted from ebony (a color term from the name of a dark-colored wood) and phonics (the name of a method for teaching reading), was destined to attach to the board as if chiseled into a block of granite and hung round their necks.

   • 2020 May 31, “Violence, destruction mar Seattle protests over the death of George Floyd”, in The Seattle Times‎^[1], page A1:

     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.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Black.

Noun

Black (plural Blacks)

1. Alternative letter-case form of black (“person having dark pigmentation of the skin”)

Usage notes

• See usage notes at black regarding capitalization of the term.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blak/

Noun

Black m or f by sense (plural Blacks)

1. Alternative letter-case form of black

German Low German

Etymology

From Old Saxon *blak, from Proto-Germanic *blaką. Cognate with English black.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [blak]

Noun

Black n (no plural)

1. ink

Synonyms

• Dint
• Enk

Derived terms

• Black sopen hebben
• Blackfatt
• Blackfrost
• Blackglas
• Blackhoorn
• Blackpott
• Blackschieter