Black Friday
Black Friday proper noun: any Friday that is literally or figuratively darkened by catastrophe, or the anniversary thereof.
Proper noun
Black Friday (plural Black Fridays)
- Any Friday that is literally or figuratively darkened by catastrophe, or the anniversary thereof.
- The conclusion of United States v. Scheinberg on April 15, 2011, after which major online poker sites stopped offering real money play to their United States customers.
- The day after Thanksgiving Day, generally regarded as the first day of the Christmas season, and the busiest shopping day of the year.
- The sales period involving heavy price reductions immediately following Thanksgiving Day, from Friday (the original Black Friday) through Monday (Cyber Monday).
- Synonym of Friday the thirteenth (“a Friday falling on the 13th day of the month (and therefore doubly ill-omened)”).
- Synonyms:
- Friday the thirteenth
- Good Friday, the Friday before Easter.
Black Friday meaning in Hindi and Arabic
Black Friday in Hindi
- day after U.S. Thanksgiving Day
- ब्लैक फ़्राइडे blaik frāiḍe, काला शुक्रवार kālā śukravār
Black Friday in Arabic
- sales period involving heavy price reductions
- الْجُمُعَة السَّوْدَاء, الجُمُعَة الْبَيْضَاء
Synonyms of Black Friday
Forms of Black Friday
| plural | Black Fridays |
|---|
Origin of Black Friday
From black (“bad; ill-omened; marked by disaster”) + Friday. Friday has long been considered an unlucky day in ancient superstition. When a Friday coincided with another bad omen, such as falling on the 13th, or was marked by a disaster, it came to be called a Black Friday. In Philadelphia, police later used the term to describe the day after Thanksgiving, when heavy shopping crowds caused severe traffic congestion and chaos. Over time, public relations campaigns promoted a more positive, but inaccurate, explanation for the name. This widely circulated false etymology claimed that Black Friday” referred to the point in the year when retailers shifted from operating at a loss (“in the red”) to making a profit (“in the black”). Despite its popularity, this explanation is an urban legend and was even mistakenly included in sources like Wiktionary for several years.
Questions about Black Friday
- What does Black Friday mean?
- Black Friday means any Friday that is literally or figuratively darkened by catastrophe, or the anniversary thereof.
- What is Black Friday in Hindi?
- Black Friday in Hindi is ब्लैक फ़्राइडे (blaik frāiḍe), काला शुक्रवार (kālā śukravār). See Black Friday meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is Black Friday?
- Black Friday is a proper noun.
Words near Black Friday in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Black Friday (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)-Flame, not lame-Black Friday.wav.
Cite this entry: “Black Friday.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/black_friday. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.