black

black · adjective, noun, verb¹

1. Proto-Germanic*blakaz
2. Proto-West Germanic*blak
3. Old Englishblæc
4. Middle Englishblak
5. English todayblack

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”).

Black · proper noun²

1. Old French · derived fromblanc“white”
2. Old English · inherited fromblāc“pale”
3. Middle English · inherited fromblak“black”
4. English todayBlack

From Middle English blak (“black”). Also a variant of Blake, from Old English blāc (“pale”) and Blanc, from Old French blanc (“white”).

Black · adjective, noun³

Capitalized to follow the usual capitalization patterns for ethnic groups (compare e.g. Hispanic, Arab), and also, perhaps, as a way to explicitly distinguish it from the color sense, which is not capitalized outside proper nouns.

Words from the same roots