Black

See also: black and bläck

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Proper noun

Black

1. A surname transferred from the nickname

Adjective

Black (not comparable)

1. Alternative letter-case form of black (of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin)
   • 1999, Geoffrey K. Pullum, "African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes", ch. 3 in The Workings of Language (ed. Wheeler, Rebecca S.), p. 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.

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.

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blak/

Noun

Black m or f (plural Blacks)

1. Alternative letter-case form of black