Word.ws English Dictionary

black bloc

black bloc noun: any group of individuals who join a protest or demonstration, wearing black clothing including items to protect and/or conceal their faces and often engaging in violence and vandalism; the tactic of forming and participating in such a group.

black bloc: any group of individuals who join a protest or demonstration, wearing black clothing including...
Image: Ben Schumin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

black bloc (plural black blocs)

  1. Any group of individuals who join a protest or demonstration, wearing black clothing including items to protect and/or conceal their faces and often engaging in violence and vandalism; the tactic of forming and participating in such a group.
    • It made perfect sense to Michael that the Berlin police would choose to infiltrate the Black Bloc, rather than the establishment leftist parties.2008, Peter David Orr, The Dive, page 51
    • The Black Bloc tactics emerged in Germany in the 1980s, and caught the attention of the North American public during the 1999 Battle of Seattle.2012, Michael Truscello, “16: Social Media and the Representation of Summit Protests: YouTube, Riot Porn, and the Anarchist Tradition”, in Ted Gournelos, David J. Gunkel, editors, Transgression 2.0...

Forms of black bloc

pluralblack blocs
alternative formBlack Bloc

Origin of black bloc

Calque of German schwarzer Block.

Questions about black bloc

What does black bloc mean?
Black bloc means any group of individuals who join a protest or demonstration, wearing black clothing including items to protect and/or conceal their faces and often engaging in violence and vandalism; the tactic of forming and participating in such a group.
What part of speech is black bloc?
Black bloc is a noun.
What is the plural of black bloc?
The plural of black bloc is black blocs.

Words near black bloc in the dictionary

  1. black birch tree
  2. black birch trees
  3. black birches
  4. black bitch
  5. black blizzard
  6. black bloc
  7. black blocs
  8. black bodies
  9. black body
  10. black bomber
  11. black bombers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: black bloc (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “black bloc.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/black_bloc. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.