blackout
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: criminology
human-sciences
law
sciences
Etymology: Etymology tree
English black outdeverb.
English blackout
Deverbal from black out.
Inflected forms:
form: blackouts
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: black-out
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A temporary loss of consciousness.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A temporary loss of memory.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: “I mean, what is she even talking about? Got her pregnant at the Halloween party? What does that mean? I don't even remember that party. I was wasted.” “Yeah, me too. I browned out that evening.” “"browned out"? What's "browned out"?” “Oh, it's when you drink so much that everything goes brown. It's not as severe as a blackout, 'cause I remember bits and pieces. I like to call it "browning out."”
gloss: A large-scale power failure, and resulting loss of electricity to consumers.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The repairs at the Koeberg Power Station in the Western Cape were on schedule for completion in the third week of May. This follows huge blackouts related to the problems at the power supplier since November.
There have been several examples of space weather affecting power grids in the last few decades, notably blackouts caused by GICs [geomagnetically induced currents] in Canada in 1989 and Sweden in 2003.
gloss: An instance of censorship, especially a temporary one.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: media blackout
According to a press release issued by the clinic staff, a blackout by the local press had kept the public uninformed about the clinic's harassment.
The protests have alarmed authorities, and on Thursday night, they shut off internet and mobile access in the country, cutting the Iranian people off from the rest of the world. Rights groups have accused the government of exploiting the media blackout to carry out a brutal crackdown against protesters.
gloss: An intentional outage of a website or other online service, typically as a form of protest.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
countable
uncountable
examples: the 2012 English Wikipedia blackout
A group of Redditors, many of whom are moderators, organized a temporary boycott, with participating subreddits going private or restricted for 48 hours starting on Monday. A Twitch stream tracking the blackout claimed that nearly 8,500 subreddits, some with tens of millions of subscribers, had gone dark by Tuesday afternoon.
gloss: The mandatory blocking of all light emanating from buildings, as well as outdoor and street lighting as a measure against aerial bombing or naval attack, as imposed during, e.g., World War II.
pos: noun
tags: countable
historical
uncountable
examples: In co-operation with the Government departments, the British railway companies prepared their stations, offices, docks, hotels, trains, and other premises for the necessary blackout of lighting that it was realised would be required in a state of emergency, and in the case of the experimental voluntary blackouts which took place in July and August the railway companies concerned co-operated in every way possible.
During the "blackout", many real cars and lorries had their front wings painted white, in order to avoid accidents.
gloss: The blocking out of as much light as possible.
pos: noun
tags: attributive
countable
uncountable
examples: blackout blinds; blackout curtains
gloss: A mass murder committed, usually in an urban area, to eliminate potential witnesses of a previous crime.
pos: noun
tags: countable
rare
slang
uncountable
Related words: whiteout
Derived words: blackout bag
blackout bomb
blackout cake
blackout curtain
blackout date
blackout gag
blackout lamp
blackout poem
blackout poetry
blackouts
blackout skit
Brooklyn blackout cake
brownout
brown out
rolling blackout
Translations: