Word.ws English Dictionary

Black Death

Black Death proper noun: a pandemic outbreak of bubonic plague throughout Europe and most of Asia in the 14th century that killed nearly half the population of Europe and Asia.

Proper noun

the Black Death

  1. (historical) A pandemic outbreak of bubonic plague throughout Europe and most of Asia in the 14th century that killed nearly half the population of Europe and Asia.
    • Following the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, and the weakening of Mongol rule, the closing of overland routes between Europe and Asia once again created a bottleneck that flowed through the Middle East, trade flows that were largely controlled by Venice and Egypt.2013, Al Gore, “Earth Inc.”, in The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18
    Synonyms:
    the plague, the bubonic plague, the Black Plague

Black Death meaning in Tamil, Gujarati, Arabic and Indonesian

Black Death in Tamil

கருநிற அழுகல்நோய்

Black Death in Gujarati

the Black Death
મરકી markī

Black Death in Arabic

14th century pandemic outbreak
الطّاعُونُ aṭ-ṭāʕūnu, مَوْت أَسْوَد mawt ʔaswad

Black Death in Indonesian

14th century pandemic outbreak
Kematian Hitam
More languagesFewer languages
Black Death in Thai
กาฬมรณะ gaa-lá-mɔɔ-rá-ná
Black Death in Vietnamese
Cái Chết Đen

Synonyms of Black Death

Origin of Black Death

Calque of Danish den sorte død (literally “the black death”), sortedød (“black death”), since 1755, from Old Danish. The collocation as such is attested early on, but the specific use is believed to have originated in Scandinavia and is first attested in Swedish swarta dödhen (1540), svarthe döden (1555); Modern Swedish svarta döden; compare Norwegian svartedauden, svartedauen.

Questions about Black Death

What does Black Death mean?
Black Death means a pandemic outbreak of bubonic plague throughout Europe and most of Asia in the 14th century that killed nearly half the population of Europe and Asia.
What is Black Death in Tamil?
Black Death in Tamil is கருநிற அழுகல்நோய். See Black Death meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is Black Death?
Black Death is a proper noun.

Words near Black Death in the dictionary

  1. black cypress pine
  2. black dammar
  3. black dark
  4. black day
  5. black days
  6. Black Death
  7. black diamond
  8. black diamonds
  9. Black Ditch
  10. black dog
  11. black dog syndrome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Black Death (page history and authors); black death (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); મરકી (Gujarati) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Black Death.wav.

Cite this entry: “Black Death.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/black_death. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.