Dictionary

whiteout en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio
• /ˈwaɪtˌaʊt/

Etymology

Deverbal from white out.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) A heavy snowstorm; a blizzard.
2. (countable, uncountable) Any weather condition in which visibility and contrast are severely reduced by snow or sand causing the horizon and physical features of the terrain to disappear.
   • A whiteout can best be described as a paradoxical combination of being partially blind, but also being able to see illusions of things. It is like floundering in a sea of cotton; everything looks blurred and white. 1979, Finn Ronne, Antarctica, My Destiny, Hastings House, →ISBN, page 136:
3. (countable, uncountable) Correction fluid (from the brand name Wite-Out).
4. (countable, slang, uncountable) A sporting event where all in attendance are urged to wear white apparel.
5. (countable, uncountable) The simulated erasure of a file, etc. on a read-only volume.
6. (countable, uncountable) The suppression of a story by the media, analogously to deleting information with correction fluid.
   • "Who Put the Black Face on Poverty," the show asked. Well, the mainstream media "whiteout" of the story provides a clue. 1998, Extra!: The Newsletter of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)., page 8:
   • The slightest reference to national security is accepted as excuse enough for a news whiteout. 1992, Mid-American Review - Volume 13, page 97:
   • What, for example, have the protagonists of the First Amendment to say about the media whiteout in the United States on the work of such a distinguished radical as Noam Chomsky? 1998, Ian Loveland, Importing the First Amendment:
   • Despite the media whiteout, we believe our weapon flashing had communicated the important political message that the nuclear mentality and the masculine mentality are intimately connected. 1986, Atlantis - Volume 12, page 174:
7. (countable, uncountable) The silencing of voices and perspectives other than those of white people.
   • Closer to home, I thought about how that same “whiteout” existed in U.S. scholarship on television production and viewership and their cultural flows. 2013, Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences, →ISBN:
   • While it represented a symbolic break from the “whiteout” on the US presidency, it was also, obviously, the most racialized campaign in American history. 2012, H. Samy Alim, Geneva Smitherman, Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S., →ISBN:
   • We must return to a time where whiteout will no longer exist in our thinking process, and remember, black is not just a color but a totally different way of being. 2015, Niinana Kweku, Whiteout, →ISBN:

Forms

Relateds

brownout · blackout · grayout · greyout

Translations (18)

cmn 乳白天空 (weather condition) · fr jour blanc (weather condition) · ru бе́лая мгла (weather condition) · cmn 暴風雪 /暴风雪 (heavy snowstorm) · ru пурга́ (heavy snowstorm) · sv flatljus (weather condition) · fi lumisokeus (weather condition) · fr blanc dehors (heavy snowstorm) · fr voile blanc (weather condition) · fr blanc dehors (weather condition) · sh mećava (heavy snowstorm) · sv snörök (weather condition) · fi whiteout (weather condition) · fr temps laiteux (weather condition) · ru сне́жная бу́ря (heavy snowstorm) · fi myräkkä (heavy snowstorm) · ru бура́н (heavy snowstorm) · ja 猛吹雪 (heavy snowstorm)