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black hole

Sayblak HOHLUS/blæk ˈhoʊl/UK/blæk ˈhəʊl/

Pluralblack holes

Verbblack holes, black holing, black holed

7 meanings of black hole

Practice

  1. 1
    gravity trap (space)nouncountable
    An area in space where gravity pulls so hard that nothing, not even light, can get out.

    Like a hole with walls so steep that anything that falls in can never climb back out.

    Nothing that falls into a black hole can ever come back out.

    Scientists think a huge black hole sits at the center of our galaxy.

    Note
  2. 2
    voidnounfigurativelycountable
    A place where things disappear forever, or a subject or area that no one can understand.

    My little brother's bedroom is a black hole for socks and phone chargers.

    That part of the forest is a black hole on the map because no one has ever explored it.

    Similarvoid, blank

    Note
  3. 3
    punishment cellnouncountable
    A cell or room where someone is locked up as punishment, such as in a jail or on a military base.

    The soldier spent two nights in the black hole for fighting.

    The guards threw the thief into the black hole until the judge arrived.

    Similarcell, lockup, guardroom

    Note
  4. 4
    data sink (network)nouncountablebefore a noun
    A place on a network where data sent to it is thrown away without any warning.

    The company sent the junk traffic to a black hole, so the website stayed online.

    Our school's network has a black hole server that quietly throws away junk data.

    Note
  5. 5
    drop trafficverbtransitive
    To send network data nowhere, or to throw away data that is coming in.

    During the attack, the company had to black hole all the traffic from those addresses.

    Our email system quietly black holes junk mail, so it never reaches anyone's inbox.

    Similardiscard, drop

    Note

Less common meanings

  1. 6
    noun
    A bit bucket; a place of permanent oblivion for data.
  2. 7
    noun
    A dangerous optical illusion that can occur on a nighttime approach with dark, featureless terrain between the aircraft and a brightly-lit runway, where the aircraft appears to the pilots to be higher up than it actually is, potentially triggering a premature or overly-steep descent and a crash short of the runway.

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Origin

Around 1960, the physicist Robert H. Dicke said these objects in space were like the "Black Hole of Calcutta." The name became popular after a 1967 talk by the physicist John Wheeler.