Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

blackwash en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Etymology

From black + -wash or black + wash (depending on sense).

Meanings

  1. (New-Zealand, countable, slang, uncountable) A whitewash victory for any New Zealand national sporting team.
  2. (countable, slang, uncountable) A whitewash victory for the West Indies cricket team. Started in the 1984–86 "Blackwash" series of the West Indian cricket team in England in 1984.
  3. (countable, uncountable) A lotion made by mixing calomel and limewater.
  4. (countable, slang, uncountable) Public campaigns and advertising funded by the coal industry to draw attention away from environmentally unsustainable practices or to justify exclusion from carbon taxes.
  5. (countable, uncountable) A villainization campaign.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
blackwashes Number=Plur lexicographic

Antonyms

whitewash

Deriveds

blackwashing · blackwashed

Synonyms

blackout (New Zealand victory)

blackwash en · VERB

Pronunciation

Etymology

From black + -wash or black + wash (depending on sense).

Meanings

  1. (transitive) To villainize, to present in a damaging light.
    • Mistrusting my own prejudices, I have taken the story from the two parliamentary papers in which our officials have done their utmost to whitewash the tribunals and the pigeon-shooting party, and to blackwash the villagers. 1904, George Bernard Shaw, John Bull's Other Island, page lxii:
    • Near-synonyms: tar, smear, besmirch
  2. (transitive) To cover with a black color.
    • The masts of British frigates and U.S. warships blackwashed the piers at the Embarcadero. 2004, Peter Plate, Fogtown, page 109:
    • I do not care whether a man whitewashes or blackwashes his fence, or whether he uses guano or barnyard manure, or what his mode of cultivation may be, the question is, Does he get good fruit? 1892, Henry Ward Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit: Sermons Preached in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, Sept 1873-Sept 1874, Volume 2:
  3. (transitive) To portray in a revisionist fashion as belonging to a black race of people.
    • Basquiat's epic-size, experimental canvases betray his radical determination to blackwash not solely history but art history. 2019, Celeste-Marie Bernier, Stick to the Skin, page 102:
    • TheCYGamer, for example, called out the game for liberal propaganda, stating that, "[…] This is straight up blackwashing history to please the SJW's." 2022, Stefan Aguirre Quiroga, White Mythic Space: Racism, the First World War, and Battlefield 1:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
blackwashing Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
blackwashes Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic
blackwashed Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
blackwashed Tense=Past lexicographic

Antonyms

whitewash · rehabilitate · launder

Coordinates

negroize · negrify · tar · negrofy · blackify

Deriveds

blackwasher

Hypernyms

misportray

Relateds

blackface

Synonyms

smear · tar · blacken · besmirch