blackback

B3L1A1C3K5B3A1C3K5

noun

An adolescent male gorilla or chimpanzee.

Scrabble 25

Meanings

nounblackback (plural blackbacks)

plural blackbacks

  1. biologyAn adolescent male gorilla or chimpanzee.

    The second-ranking silverback is also a possible sire in the sixth case, although three other lower-ranking blackback males were also not excluded.

    2005, B. J. Bradley et al., “Mountain Gorilla Tug-of-War,”, in PNAS, volume 102, number 26, page 9421
    1 more example

    The author worked with two main study groups of gorilla in that region. Each contained a fully mature male (silverback), who was the obvious leader of the group, and a younger male of around 9 years of age (blackback), who had not yet assumed full adult morphology.

    1979, A. H. Harcourt, “Contrasts between Male Relationships in Wild Gorilla Groups,”, in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, volume 5, number 1, page 40

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

blackback. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/blackback

MLA

“blackback.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/blackback. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “blackback,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/blackback.

Source: blackback on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.