blackball

UK/ˈblækbɔːl//ˈblækbɑl/

blackball noun: a rejection; a vote against admitting someone.

Noun

blackball (countable and uncountable, plural blackballs)

(countable) A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
(countable) A black ball used to indicate such a negative vote.
- Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership, a single blackball will reject the candidate.
(countable) A kind of large black sweet, a black-colored gobstopper.

Synonyms:

niggerball
A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
(uncountable) A game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.

Synonyms:

reds and yellows

blackball (third-person singular simple present blackballs, present participle blackballing, simple past and past participle blackballed)

(transitive) To vote against, especially in an exclusive organization.
- If you're not from a moneyed, well-connected family, you can count on getting blackballed from the fraternity.
- Why, if I had known you all my life I should have grown up in the condition of Adam before the fall, and they would have blackballed me at the clubs.1898, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train
(transitive) To ostracize.
- Henry knew. If he were blackballed by this distaff Mafia, he was doomed: Endless, but always justifiable, delays would occur in the work he wanted typed.1968 July, Stan Dryer, “The Fully Automated Love Life of Henry Keanridge”, in Playboy Magazine, page 152
- My father sure could have used a union. The monopoly that controlled the bank vault installation business blackballed him when he was in his late fifties because he'd gone to work for a rival company that immediately went belly-up. If he'd been in a union he'd have got his job back."1990 February 4, Pam Mitchell, quoting Susan Moir, “Pro-Union And Queer”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 29, page 17
Synonyms:

blacklist, send to Coventry, brush off, discount, disregard, dissemble, despise, ignore, misheed, misregard

Blackball

A small town in Grey district, West Coast, New Zealand, with a history of gold and coal mining.

debar, reject, bar: തള്ളുക, തള്ളിക്കളയുക, നിരാകരിക്കുക, പ്രവേശനം തടയുക, നിരസിക്കുക, നിഷേധിക്കുക

17 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Noun
plural	blackballs
Verb
third-person singular present	blackballs
present participle	blackballing
past participle	blackballed
past	blackballed

From black + ball.

What does blackball mean?: Blackball means a rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
What is blackball in Malayalam?: Blackball in Malayalam is തള്ളുക, തള്ളിക്കളയുക, നിരാകരിക്കുക. See Blackball meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is blackball?: Blackball can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce blackball?: Blackball is pronounced /ˈblækbɔːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of blackball?: The plural of blackball is blackballs.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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

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