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blackball. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
blackball, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
blackball in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
black + ball
Pronunciation
Noun
blackball (countable and uncountable, plural blackballs)
- (countable) A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
- (countable) A black ball used to indicate such a negative vote.
Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership, a single blackball will reject the candidate.
- (countable) A kind of large black sweet.
- Synonym: (dated, offensive) niggerball
- A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
- (uncountable) A game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.
- Synonym: reds and yellows
Verb
blackball (third-person singular simple present blackballs, present participle blackballing, simple past and past participle blackballed)
- (transitive) To vote against, especially in an exclusive organization.
If you're not from a moneyed, well-connected family, you can count on getting blackballed from the fraternity.
1898, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train:Why, if I had known you all my life I should have grown up in the condition of Adam before the fall, and they would have blackballed me at the clubs.
- (transitive) To ostracize.
- Synonyms: blacklist, send to Coventry; see also Thesaurus:ignore, Thesaurus:boycott
1968 July, Stan Dryer, “The Fully Automated Love Life of Henry Keanridge”, in Playboy Magazine, page 152:Henry knew. If he were blackballed by this distaff Mafia, he was doomed: Endless, but always justifiable, delays would occur in the work he wanted typed.
2017 October 21, Mark Townsend, “Weinstein accuser says she was scared to go public with harassment claim”, in The Observer, →ISSN:The actor Katherine Kendall has revealed how the fear of being “blackballed” by Hollywood’s powerbrokers stopped her from making claims of sexual harassment.