Black
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English
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
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)
- A surname transferred from the nickname.
- A number of places in the United States:
- A town in Geneva County, Alabama.
- An unincorporated community in Edwards County, Illinois.
- A township in Posey County, Indiana; from the surname.
- An unincorporated community in Reynolds County, Missouri.
- A township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania; from the surname.
- An unincorporated community in Mercer County and Wyoming County, West Virginia.
Derived terms
Statistics
- According to the 2010 United States Census, Black is the 174th 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)
- (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 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, 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)
- 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.
Derived terms
French
Pronunciation
Noun
Black m or f by sense (plural Blacks)
- Alternative letter-case form of black
German Low German
Etymology
From Old Saxon *blak, from Proto-Germanic *blaką. Cognate with English black.
Pronunciation
Noun
Black n (no plural)