Added 8 October 2026
black
/blæk/ noun
In Latin: ater, niger Wiktionary
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about black at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
verb
adjective
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Being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light.
black leather jackets
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Of or belonging to a racial group especially of sub-Saharan African origin.
a great people--a black people--...injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization
-
Marked by anger or resentment or hostility.
black looks
Origin
From Middle English blak, black, blake, from Old English blæc (“black, dark", also "ink”), from Proto-West Germanic *blak, from Proto-Germanic *blakaz (“burnt”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleg- (“to burn, shine”). See also Dutch blaken (“to burn”), Low German blak, black (“blackness, black paint, (black) ink”), Old High German blah (“black”); also compare Latin flagrāre (“to burn”), Ancient Greek φλόξ (phlóx, “flame”), Sanskrit भर्ग (bharga, “radiance”). Adjective sense 20 is a semantic loan from Cantonese 黑面 (hak1 min6, “to pull a long face, to scowl”).
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)