Meanings
- An area of West Midlands, England, traditionally seen as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
I was on a very loose end when one day, outside the Secretariat, as they call it, I ran up against a man called Fraser whom I'd known building a viaduct or something of that sort in the Black Country.
1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC1 more example
[…] and with the two promised Sheffielders, Driver Elliott and Fireman Lewis, we were soon on our way over the most unapproachably dreary region of the whole run, scarcely to be paralleled in the Black Country itself.
1949 March and April, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–2”, in Railway Magazine, page 82
Origin
From the smoke and heavy industry of the area.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Black Country. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Black%20Country
“Black Country.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Black%20Country. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Black Country,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Black%20Country.
Source: Black Country on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.