- black
- adjective1)
a black horse
Syn:dark, pitch-black, jet-black, coal-black, ebony, sable, inkyAnt:white2)a black night
Syn:unlit, dark, starless, moonless, wan; literary tenebrous, StygianAnt:clear, bright3)thirty-seven percent of our advanced-study students are black
See note below
4)the blackest day of the war
Syn:tragic, disastrous, calamitous, catastrophic, cataclysmic, fateful, wretched, woeful, awful, terrible; formal grievousAnt:joyful5)Mary was in a black mood
Syn:miserable, unhappy, sad, wretched, broken-hearted, heartbroken, grief-stricken, grieving, sorrowful, sorrowing, anguished, desolate, despairing, disconsolate, downcast, dejected, sullen, cheerless, melancholy, morose, gloomy, glum, mournful, doleful, funereal, dismal, forlorn, woeful, abject; informal blue; literary dolorousAnt:cheerful6)black humor
Syn:cynical, macabre, weird, unhealthy, ghoulish, morbid, perverted, gruesome; informal sick7)a black look
Syn:angry, vexed, cross, irritated, incensedSee also angry 1)Ant:pleased8) archaica black deed
Syn:wicked, evil, heinous, villainous, badSee also wicked 1)Ant:virtuous•••blackBlack, designating Americans of African heritage, became the most widely used and accepted term in the 1960s and 1970s, replacing Negro. It is not usually capitalized: black Americans. Through the 1980s, the more formal African American replaced black in much usage, but both are now generally acceptable. Afro-American, an earlier alternative to black, is heard mostly in anthropological and cultural contexts. Colored people, common earlier in the twentieth century, is now usually regarded as derogatory, although the phrase survives in the full name of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. An inversion, people of color, has gained some favor, but is also used in reference to other nonwhite ethnic groups: a gathering spot for African Americans and other people of color interested in reading about their cultures.
Thesaurus of popular words. 2014.