black aces

Noun

black ace (plural black aces)

1. A player from a junior league who is called up by an NHL team after their original team's season has ended and kept as a reserve player.
   • At one time or another every Springfield player was designated a "black ace." According to Kilrea, that meant reporting to the rink at 8:30 in the morning and skating from 9 to 11. Another session followed in the afternoon, from 12 to 2, and Shore would keep his ace, or aces, out on the ice...1985, The New York Times Biographical Service - Volume 16, page 210
2. (slang) An elite mafia hitman.
   • The big man in the Mafia said: 'Billy, me and the boys are praying for you. We know you're up against the big one this time, the big black ace'.1968, Polly Rose Gottlieb, The Nine Lives of Billy Rose, page 92
3. (euphemistic, obsolete) A woman's sexual favours, or a woman who gives them.
   • Blame her not poor Woman, she loves nothing so well as a black ace.1676, George Etherege, The Man of Mode
4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, ace.
   • The ace of spades is a black ace.