blackball

English edit

Etymology edit

black +‎ ball

Pronunciation edit

enPR: blăk'bôl', IPA^(key): /ˈblækbɔːl/

Noun edit

blackball (countable and uncountable, plural blackballs)

(countable) A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
(countable) A 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.
(countable) A kind of large black sweet.
Synonym: (dated, offensive) niggerball
A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
(uncountable) A game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.
Synonym: reds and yellows

Verb edit

blackball (third-person singular simple present blackballs, present participle blackballing, simple past and past participle blackballed)

(transitive) To 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.
- 1898, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train:
  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.
(transitive) To ostracize.
Synonyms: blacklist, send to Coventry; see also Thesaurus:ignore, Thesaurus:boycott
- 1968 July, Stan Dryer, “The Fully Automated Love Life of Henry Keanridge”, in Playboy Magazine, page 152:
  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.
- 2017 October 21, Mark Townsend, “Weinstein accuser says she was scared to go public with harassment claim”, in The Observer‎^[1], →ISSN:
  The actor Katherine Kendall has revealed how the fear of being “blackballed” by Hollywood’s powerbrokers stopped her from making claims of sexual harassment.