black
part of speech
adjective (black, blacker, blackest); noun (black)
meaning for a pupil
1) Black is the darkest color, the color of the night sky or of coal. tree →
2) Black means with no light: «It was black outside». tree →
3) Black can describe people whose families came from Africa. tree →
4) Black coffee has no milk. tree →
sense in the lessons
a color that sorts things into groups to count or compare; in art, black mixed with a color makes a darker shade; phrases «black and white», «blackboard», «blackout», «black eye», «in black and white» (written down)
examples
- There are 12 black cats and 8 white cats. tree →
- She has 5 black pens. tree →
- How many socks are not black? tree →
- The black car costs more. tree →
- Write your name in black ink. tree →
- The old film is in black and white. tree →
- The sky turned black before the storm. tree →
- A zebra has black and white stripes. tree →
- He got a black eye playing football. tree →
- Black clothes get hot in the sun. tree →
note
Sorts things into groups; groups are added or compared. Trap: the black ones are a part, not the total. Black objects take in more heat from sunlight than white ones.
In the corpora
- Nearly 2000 years ago a volcano buried a Roman town and burned a library of scrolls to black lumps that nobody could open.
- In black-and-white films, chocolate syrup was used as fake blood because it looked right on screen.
- The stage crew work backstage, often dressed in black so the audience does not notice them.
- Adding white to a colour makes a lighter tint, and adding black makes a darker shade.
- A black panther is a leopard or jaguar with extra dark pigment, and its spots can still be seen in bright light.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «black» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.