Blacked

How to spell blacked

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce blacked

What does blacked mean?

1. verbMade something black, dark, or hidden, typically by covering or obscuring it.
2. verbLost consciousness or memory suddenly, usually as part of the phrase 'blacked out'.

Blacked in a sentence

• The editor blacked out every name in the leaked report before publishing it.

• She blacked out for a few seconds after standing up too quickly.

• The storm blacked out the whole neighbourhood for several hours.

• He blacked out and could not recall anything from that evening.

Where does blacked come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'black', which descends from the Old English adjective blæc, meaning 'dark' or 'the colour of soot and ink'. Curiously, blæc sat very close to another Old English word, blac, which meant 'pale' or 'shining', and the two were so easily confused that scholars sometimes cannot tell which colour an early manuscript intended. The verb sense, meaning to make something black or to darken it, grew naturally out of the adjective, as in blacking boots or polishing a stove. The phrasal use 'black out', meaning to lose consciousness or to extinguish lights, is much more recent and became common in the twentieth century, especially during wartime when towns darkened their windows against air raids. The single -ck before the -ed ending is the small spelling point worth noting, since the consonant cluster keeps the vowel short.

How the word is built

• black (from Old English blæc: dark, ink-coloured)
• -ed (past tense/past participle suffix)