n.

1. the quality or state of the achromatic color of least lightness (bearing the least resemblance to white);
   blackness, inkiness
2. total absence of light;
   total darkness, lightlessness, blackness, pitch blackness
   
   • they fumbled around in total darkness
   • in the black of night
3. British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799);
   Black, Joseph Black
4. popular child actress of the 1930's (born in 1928);
   Black, Shirley Temple Black, Shirley Temple
5. a person with dark skin who comes from Africa (or whose ancestors came from Africa);
   Black, Black person, blackamoor, Negro, Negroid
6. (board games) the darker pieces
7. black clothing (worn as a sign of mourning)
   
   • the widow wore black

v.

1. make or become black;
   blacken, melanize, melanise, nigrify
   
   • The smoke blackened the ceiling
   • The ceiling blackened

adj.

1. 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
2. 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.
3. marked by anger or resentment or hostility
   
   • black looks
   • black words
4. 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;
   dark, sinister
5. offering little or no hope;
   bleak, dim
   
   • 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
6. (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin;
   calamitous, disastrous, fatal, fateful
   
   • 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
7. (of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood;
   blackened
   
   • a face black with fury
8. extremely dark;
   pitch-black, pitch-dark
   
   • a black moonless night
   • through the pitch-black woods
   • it was pitch-dark in the cellar
9. harshly ironic or sinister;
   grim, mordant
   
   • black humor
   • a grim joke
   • grim laughter
   • fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit
10. (of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading
    
    • black propaganda
11. distributed or sold illicitly;
    bootleg, black-market, contraband, smuggled
    
    • the black economy pays no taxes
12. (used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame;
    disgraceful, ignominious, inglorious, opprobrious, shameful
    
    • 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
13. (of coffee) without cream or sugar
14. dressed in black
    
    • a black knight
    • black friars
15. soiled with dirt or soot;
    smutty
    
    • with feet black from playing outdoors
    • his shirt was black within an hour