Blackout

How to spell blackout

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blackout

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blackout mean?

1. nounA period during which electrical power, or all light, fails or is cut off.
2. nounA temporary loss of consciousness or of memory.
3. nounA deliberate suppression or withholding of news or information.

Blackout in a sentence

• The storm caused a city-wide blackout that lasted six hours.

• The pilot trained to avoid a blackout during high-speed turns.

• The government imposed a media blackout on the ongoing investigation.

• During the blackout we lit candles and waited for the engineers.

• She suffered a brief blackout and could not recall the accident.

• Reporters protested the blackout that kept the trial details hidden.

Where does blackout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Blackout is a modern compound formed simply from the adjective 'black', which descends from the Old English blæc meaning 'dark' or 'devoid of light', joined to the adverb 'out'. The word emerged in the early twentieth century in the theatrical world, where 'blackout' described the sudden killing of all stage lighting to mark the end of a scene. During the First and especially the Second World War the term took on its now-familiar civilian sense, when towns and cities extinguished or covered every light so enemy aircraft could not spot targets at night, which is also why heavy 'blackout curtains' got their name. From those literal darkenings the word spread by metaphor to a failure of electrical power, to a temporary loss of consciousness or memory, and to the deliberate suppression of news or information. Because it is a transparent two-part compound written as a single solid word, the only real spelling decision is remembering not to split or hyphenate it.

How the word is built

• black (from Old English blæc, dark)
• out (adverb)