blackball

plural blackballs

1. countableA rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
2. countableA black ball used to indicate such a negative vote.

   Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership, a single blackball will reject the candidate.

3. countableA kind of large black sweet, a black-colored gobstopper.

   Synonyms: niggerball

4. countableuncountableA substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
5. uncountableA game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.

   Synonyms: reds and yellows

present singular third person blackballs · participle present blackballing · participle past blackballed · past blackballed

1. transitiveTo vote against, especially in an exclusive organization.

   If you're not from a moneyed, well-connected family, you can count on getting blackballed from the fraternity.

   1 more example

   Why, if I had known you all my life I should have grown up in the condition of Adam before the fall, and they would have blackballed me at the clubs.

   1898, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train

2. transitiveTo ostracize.

   Henry knew. If he were blackballed by this distaff Mafia, he was doomed: Endless, but always justifiable, delays would occur in the work he wanted typed.

   1968 July, Stan Dryer, “The Fully Automated Love Life of Henry Keanridge”, in Playboy Magazine, page 152

   3 more examples

   My father sure could have used a union. The monopoly that controlled the bank vault installation business blackballed him when he was in his late fifties because he'd gone to work for a rival company that immediately went belly-up. If he'd been in a union he'd have got his job back."

   1990 February 4, Pam Mitchell, quoting Susan Moir, “Pro-Union And Queer”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 29, page 17

   The actor Katherine Kendall has revealed how the fear of being “blackballed” by Hollywood’s powerbrokers stopped her from making claims of sexual harassment.

   2017 October 21, Mark Townsend, “Weinstein accuser says she was scared to go public with harassment claim”, in The Observer, →ISSN

   Kaepernick believes the NFL made an example of him: “By blackballing me, denying me employment because of fighting to create a better society and fighting to keep people alive, there’s very real implications about who they are as an organisation and what they believe. I think, largely, the community and society knows it and sees it,” he says.

   2026 September 26, Steve Rose, quoting Colin Kaepernick, “‘Refusing to meet Trump was an easy no’: Colin Kaepernick on being ‘blackballed’ for taking the knee, racism, and why he’s still ready to play”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: blacklist, send to Coventry, brush off, discount, disregard, dissemble, despise, ignore

1. A small town in Grey district, West Coast, New Zealand, with a history of gold and coal mining.