black out
Definition
- Verb (intransitive):
- To lose consciousness suddenly and temporarily. This typically occurs due to a sudden physical or emotional shock, illness, or lack of oxygen.
- Verb (transitive):
- To suppress information by obscuring it, often by covering text with a dark mark, especially for reasons of censorship or privacy.
- To cause an area to become completely dark, as by turning off or blocking all lights.
- To obliterate or extinguish something completely.
Usage and Examples
Verb (intransitive - lose consciousness):
- The boxer blacked out for a few seconds after the powerful punch.
- She felt dizzy and nearly blacked out from the pain.
Verb (transitive - censor by obscuring):
- The government blacked out several paragraphs in the leaked document before its release.
- Please black out my personal address on that form.
Verb (transitive - darken completely):
- During the air raid drill, the city blacked out all streetlights.
- The storm was so severe it blacked out the entire neighborhood.
Verb (transitive - obliterate or extinguish):
- The massive power surge blacked out the computer's memory. (figurative)
- The intense light from the explosion blacked out my vision momentarily.
Advanced Usage
- "to have a blackout": This noun form, derived from the verb, refers to the period or instance of losing consciousness, a loss of memory, or a period of darkness.
- He had a total blackout and doesn't remember the accident.
- Used in broadcasting: To cease transmission intentionally.
- The station will black out the game in the local market.
Variants and Related Words
- Blackout (noun): The event or result of blacking out.
- A memory blackout; a citywide blackout.
- Blackened (adjective): Made dark or black. (Note: This is related to the 'darken' sense but is a distinct adjective form of a different verb, 'blacken').
Synonyms
- Faint, pass out (for losing consciousness).
- Censor, redact, obscure (for suppressing text).
- Darken, shroud, eclipse (for making dark).
- Erase, wipe out, obliterate (for extinguishing).
Related Phrasal Verbs
- Pass out: A close synonym for losing consciousness.
- He passed out from exhaustion.
- Zone out: To become inattentive or lose focus, but not necessarily lose consciousness.
- I just zoned out during the long lecture.
Related Idioms
- Draw a blank: To be unable to remember something. This is related to the memory aspect of a blackout.
- I drew a blank when trying to recall his name.
- In the dark: Uninformed or kept in ignorance. This is conceptually related to the censorship or darkness meanings.
- The management kept us in the dark about the layoffs.
Verb
-
lose consciousness due to a sudden trauma, for example
-
suppress by censorship as for political reasons
-
parts of the newspaper article were blacked out
-
-
darken completely
-
The dining room blackened out
-
-
obliterate or extinguish
-
Some life-forms were obliterated by the radiation, others survived
-
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