black and white

plural black and whites · alternative black-and-white

1. USslanggovernmentA police patrol car.

   [T]he news bunny ran up to him, saying, "Officer, did you have trouble catching up with Batman? Was it an exciting chase?" The surfer cop struck a semi-heroic pose for the camera and said, "Weak sauce." Then he quickly walked Batman to the black-and-white, where he was put into the backseat.

   2006, Joseph Wambaugh, Hollywood Station […], New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 237

   Synonyms: police vehicle

2. USbroadlyslangThe police, a police officer or the clothing they wear.

   Them punk motherfuckers in black and white ain't the only motherfuckers I gots to fight.

   1992, “A Nigga Witta Gun”, in The Chronic, performed by Dr. Dre, Death Row Records

3. A type of giant cookie (about eight inches in diameter) with icing on the top side: half white, half dark chocolate.

   Synonyms: half-moon

4. A kind of ice cream soda with chocolate and vanilla flavors.
5. figurativelyDay and night (two very different things).

comparative more black and white · superlative most black and white · alternative black-and-white

1. literal; strictly; literal; strictlyOf art, a photograph or photography, using dots or lines that are either black or white (with no other values involved).

   Using Adobe Photoshop, he opened the images that were grayscale and converted them to be black and white.

2. broadlyliteralOf art, a photograph or photography, using shades of grey rather than shades of any other color.

   Their photos from that era are all black and white.

   Synonyms: grayscale, greyscale, monochrome

3. Of a television or monitor, displaying images in shades of grey rather than color.

   1 more example

   The second segment is one of the most audacious and ambitious in “Treehouse Of Horror” history, and not just because it’s in black and white. It’s a parody of King Kong that works spectacularly well because Homer isn’t just ape-like and simian on the inside: he’s ape-like and simian on the outside as well, so it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine the rage-filled man-child as a giant ape with serious anger-control issues.

   2012 April 29, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Treehouse of Horror III” (season 4, episode 5; originally aired 10/29/1992)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

4. Classifying people, objects or concepts as two polar opposites, especially "right" and "wrong"; dichotomous and inflexible.

   I wish she weren't always so black and white about every single thing.

   4 more examples

   The pseudo-community of enemies in The Day the Earth Stood Still consists of politicians, the military, and businessmen, whereas the pseudo-community of friends, the element that complements the enemies and reinforces the black-and-white morality of paranoia (Cameron, "Revisited" 56), is composed of scientists, women, and children.

   1999, Cynthia Hendershot, Paranoia, the Bomb, and 1950s Science Fiction Films, Popular Press, →ISBN, page 28

   2008, Linus Torvalds, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140805134937/http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/706950 Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10], LKML; quoted in: Bezpieczeństwo, Jacek Popławski, pl.comp.os.advocacy, Usenet Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand.

   “It's complicated. Not everything is black-and-white, Ginny. Sometimes, it's just gray.” The disillusionment in Ginny's eyes hurt bone-deep. She was a black-and-white kind of person. Actions were either right or wrong. No room for in-betweens.

   2011, Sandra Orchard, Deep Cover, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 144

   You could say that inflexible thinking is black-and-white thinking and flexible thinking is rainbow thinking. Black-and-white thinkers have difficulty being flexible in their mind and seeing different possibilities and perspectives.

   2011, Aileen Zeitz Collucci, Big Picture Thinking: Using Central Coherence Theory to Support Social Skills : a Book for Students, AAPC Publishing, →ISBN, page 82

5. Easily divided into diametrically opposing categories.

   Near-synonym: night-and-day

   Synonyms: night-and-day