Word.ws English Dictionary

black man

black man noun: a male adult member of an ethnic group having dark pigmentation of the skin, typically of sub-Saharan African descent; or the appearance thereof.

Noun (1)

black man (countable and uncountable, plural black men)

  1. A male adult member of an ethnic group having dark pigmentation of the skin, typically of sub-Saharan African descent; or the appearance thereof.
    • I saw a black man with a dog and a white man on a bicycle.
    Synonyms:
    BIPOC, BME, colored, colored person, minority, nonwhite, person of color
  2. (dated, usually, with-definite-article) Black men or black people collectively; black culture.
    • The state's policy of "separate but equal" was really about keeping the black man down.
    • We know how bitter was the contest which freed at once the black man from an enforced subordination and the white master from the moral and spiritual degradation which were inseparable from the unnatural relation in which he stood.1873, Mary C Wilson, “Testimonies: Claims of Woman”, in Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends, page 16
  3. (archaic) An evil spirit, the bogeyman, a demon.
    • [H]e suspects everything he hears and sees to be a devil, or enchanted, and imagineth a thousand chimeras and visions, which to his thinking he certainly sees, bugbears, talks with black men, ghosts, goblins, etc.1624, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, volume I, New York Review Books, published 2001, page 387
  4. (archaic, uncountable) A German-derived game of tag, in which the tagging player is called the "black man".
    • The one known as "black man" was particularly interesting. It was no doubt as ancient as civilization, and was simply a drama without words wherein one of the children assumed the part of the Old Feller and proceeded to harry and capture the other players who must run from one "base" to the next to...1914, James Baldwin, In My Youth: From the Posthumous Papers of Robert Dudley, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, published 1914, page 343
    • […] played black man and one-two-three on the cobbled streets!1929, The Trident of Delta Delta Delta, volume 38, number 3, page 409
  5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, man.
    • The white men are always put on that side of the board which commences by row 1, and the black men are placed opposite.1883, Henry Richter, Chess Simplified!, page 4
    • We will suppose that you are the player of the white men, and that your opponent[,] the player of the black men[,] is sitting opposite to you, ready for battle.1908, The Chess Amateur, volume 2, page 39

Noun (2) capitalized: Black man

Black man (plural Black men)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of black man.

Examples of black man in a sentence

  • Any time there is an opportunity for the Black man in the community to be in that leadership role, the community wants him there.1999, Irvine Belinda Robnett, quoting Victoria Black, How Long? How Long? : African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights, →ISBN...
  • Ever since the Black man was accepted in professional sports, the game quality has constantly risen to new heights2010, Alfred A. Davis, Black Man Made in the U. S. A., →ISBN, page 77:
  • The one known as "black man" was particularly interesting.1914, James Baldwin, In My Youth: From the Posthumous Papers of Robert Dudley, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, published 1914, page 343:
  • […] played “black man” and "run sheep run," ate sack lunches, and rushed home after school to bring in the cows […]1994, Daniel Fitzgerald, Faded Dreams: More Ghost Towns of Kansas, page 149:

Synonyms of black man

Forms of black man

pluralblack men
pluralBlack men
alternative form (nonstandard)blackman

Questions about black man

What does black man mean?
Black man means a male adult member of an ethnic group having dark pigmentation of the skin, typically of sub-Saharan African descent; or the appearance thereof.
How do you use black man in a sentence?
Any time there is an opportunity for the Black man in the community to be in that leadership role, the community wants him there.
What part of speech is black man?
Black man is a noun.
What is the plural of black man?
The plural of black man is black men.

Words near black man in the dictionary

  1. black magicians
  2. black magick
  3. black maire
  4. black mamba
  5. black mambas
  6. black man
  7. black manganese
  8. black mangrove
  9. black mangroves
  10. black maple
  11. black maples

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: black man (page history and authors); Black man (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:

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