Word.ws English Dictionary

blacks up

blacks up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of black up.

Meaning of black up

Verb

black up (third-person singular simple present blacks up, present participle blacking up, simple past and past participle blacked up)

  1. (intransitive, literally, transitive) To become or make (something) black or darker.
  2. (intransitive, transitive) To put on or wear blackface makeup.
    • Cantor starts blacking up, right then and there, painting his face with a burnt piece of cork.2016, Zadie Smith, Swing Time, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 191
  3. (transitive) To make something (e.g. a film, cast, story line, etc.) more racially black in character; blackenize.

Questions about blacks up

What is blacks up the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Blacks up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of black up.

Words near blacks up in the dictionary

  1. blackrot
  2. blacks
  3. Blacks Harbour
  4. blacks in
  5. blacks out
  6. blacks up
  7. blacksalter
  8. blacksalters
  9. blacksaunt
  10. Blacksboat
  11. Blacksburg

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: blacks up (page history and authors); black up (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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