black Christmas en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
Meanings
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A Christmas Day or Christmas Eve on which there is no snowfall or no ground covering of snow.
D. A black Christmas makes a fat churchyard. D. This is, in effect, the same as A green winter makes, &c., as a 'black Christmas is of course a Christmas without snow.
1882, William Carew Hazlitt, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases: Collected from the Most Authentic Sources, Alphabetically Arranged, and Annotated, page 3:We didn't have any snow up here, that stayed until this year (1918) thus giving us a black Christmas, as they say, but the spirit was anything but black. Colored and white packages prevailed.
1917, The Journal of Electrical Workers and Operators, page 287:“It was a black Christmas last year. It takes a white Christmas for a good crop year .” (Jesse Stuart, Beyond Dark Hills, 1938) (Snow adds nitrogen to the soil and is widely called “poor man's manure” because it fertilizes the soil, producing better crops.)
2000, Robert Hendrickson, The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 345:We supposed that we were going to have a black Christmas, but we had snow and cold weather. The week before a storm had swept across the country to the northeastward, which just missed Albany and Boston, but […]
1928, John Van Schaick, Nature Cruisings to the Old Home Town and the Little Hill Farm:... the danger to her of travelling at that particular time of the year, the weather and the holiday crowds combined, Dorothy had written. Mrs. Fairlands turned sadly from the fireplace and walked slowly to the window. A black Christmas this year, the wireless report had [forecast].
2017, Martin Edwards, Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries, Sourcebooks, Inc., →ISBN:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| black Christmases | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Antonyms
Synonyms
Translations (7)
fr Noël noir (Christmas without snow) · nl groene kerst (Christmas without snow) · ko 블랙 크리스마스 (Christmas without snow) · sv grön jul (Christmas without snow) · fi musta joulu (Christmas without snow) · ja ブラッククリスマス (Christmas without snow) · pt Natal preto (Christmas without snow)