blackball

English

Etymology

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

From black +‎ ball.

Pronunciation

• enPR: blăk'bôl', (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈblækbɔːl/
• (US, cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈblækbɑl/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

Noun

blackball (countable and uncountable, plural blackballs)

1. (countable) A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
2. (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.

3. (countable) A kind of large black sweet, a black-colored gobstopper.

   Synonym: (dated, offensive) niggerball

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

   Synonym: reds and yellows

Verb

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

1. (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.

2. (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.

Derived terms

• blackballer