black

Adjective

• soiled with dirt or soot
  • with feet black from playing outdoors
    
  • his shirt was black within an hour
    

• (of coffee) without cream or sugar

• (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
    

• distributed or sold illicitly
  • the black economy pays no taxes
    

• (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading
  • black propaganda
    

• harshly ironic or sinister
  • black humor
    
  • a grim joke
    
  • grim laughter
    
  • fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit
    

• extremely dark
  • a black moonless night
    
  • through the pitch-black woods
    
  • it was pitch-dark in the cellar
    

• (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood
  • a face black with fury
    

• (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
    

• 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
    

• 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
    

• marked by anger or resentment or hostility
  • black looks
    
  • black words
    

• 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.
    

• 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
    

Verb

• make or become black
  • The smoke blackened the ceiling
    
  • The ceiling blackened
    

Noun

• black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)
  • the widow wore black
    

• (board games) the darker pieces

• a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa)

• popular child actress of the 1930's (born in 1928)

• British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799)

• total absence of light
  • they fumbled around in total darkness
    
  • in the black of night
    

• the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white)

Related words

• Synonyms: 
  smutty , disgraceful , ignominious , inglorious , opprobrious , shameful , bootleg , black-market , contraband , smuggled , grim , mordant , pitch-black , pitch-dark , blackened , calamitous , disastrous , fatal , fateful , dark , sinister , bleak , dim , blacken , melanize , melanise , nigrify , Black , Black
• Antonyms: 
  white , whiten , whiteness