Etymology

black box

Today it means: A flight recorder; the brightly colored cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders in an aircraft designed to aid in determining the cause of an accident. Full definition →

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The story

* Since c. 1945 in both main senses (that is, event recorders and objects with unknown innards), which are historically related to each other; for details, see black box § History and flight recorder § Terminology. * (a type of theater): Such theaters are often painted black.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.