black list, n.
1. a. A list of persons who have incurred suspicion, censure, or punishment; cf. black a. 11. Also transf. (Cf. sense 2)
| c 1619 Massinger Unnat. Combat (1639) ii. i, The blacke list of those That have nor fire nor spirit of their owne. 1692 Washington tr. Milton's Def. Pop. x. Wks. (1851) 228 If ever Charles his Posterity recover the Crown..you are like to be put in the Black List. 1774 Mrs. A. Adams Lett. (1848) 36 Mr. Boylston and Mr. Gill the printer, are held upon the black list. 1788 Gibbon Decl. & F. V. xlviii. 82 His memory was stored with a black list of enemies and rivals. 1920 Nature 27 May 392/2 A chapter is devoted to beasts which the author would place in a black list as having many undesirable proclivities. |
b. Naut. A list of delinquents to whom extra duty is assigned as a punishment. Also, the punishment of being put on the black list.
| 1834 ‘Old Sailor’ Tough Yarns 34 Almost every ship had a black list as long as the main-top bowline. 1837 United Service Jrnl. ii. 10 The cleaning, polishing and black-list methods of wasting time. 1902 W. Kennedy Sport in Navy 76 Ten days black list for the boat's crew for not giving way. 1914 Ld. C. Beresford Mem. I. 120 Such a process [sc. the spit-and-polish system] involves perpetual extra bother and worry and black-list. |
c. (a) An employers' list of workmen whom it is considered undesirable to employ. (b) A trade union list of employers for whom their members are instructed not to work.
| 1888 Atlantic Monthly Nov. 611/2 He had got his name taken off from the black-list. 1888 Encycl. Brit. XXIII. 786/2 The..dreaded weapon known as the ‘black list’, by which combinations of employers..drove employees inclined to ‘agitation’ out of employment. 1923 Management Engin. May 343/1 Blacklist, a list of union workmen circulated by employers to prevent such workers from being hired. |
d. A list of persons convicted as habitual drunkards under the Licensing Act of 1902. Hence black-lister, one who is put on the black list.
| [Cf. 1902 Act 2 Edw. VII c 28 §6 [Habitual drunkards] Whether an order of detention is made or not, the court shall order that notice of the conviction, with such particulars as may be prescribed by a Secretary of State, be sent to the police authority (within the meaning of the Police Act, 1890) for the police area in which the court is situate.] 1903 Daily Chron. 7 Jan. 5/2 A..suitable word is wanted by magistrates..to denote a drunkard on the ‘black list’ under the new Act... The word ‘blacklister’ is one that readily occurs. 1903 Ibid. 19 Jan. 2/7 The first number of the ‘Black List’, issued under the new Licensing Act, was sent out from Scotland-yard on Saturday. 1904 Ibid. 16 Feb. 6/7 It was suggested that on the approach of a known ‘black⁓lister’ the police should give warning to the publican. |
2. fig. A list of bad cases.
| 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxi. (1856) 267 Eight cases of scorbutic gums were already upon my black-list. |
Hence ˈblack-list v., to enter in a black list. So black-listed ppl. a.; black-listing vbl. n. (also attrib.).
| 1718 Hickes & Nelson J. Kettlewell iii. §10. 212 This Method of Black-Listing had its original from a certain notion. 1884 Milnor (Dakota) Teller 30 July, All the clerks making application [for work at other stores] were spotted and blacklisted and many have been dismissed. 1888 Atlantic Monthly Nov. 608/1 The manufacturers..had retaliated for some ‘labor troubles’..by ‘black-listing’ about thirty men. Ibid., Mr. H. informed us that he was a ‘black-listed’ man. Ibid. 608/2 The increase of evil in the world thus resulting from the black-listing scheme. 1892 Daily News 13 Feb. 6/1 Calling on members of the Society to ‘black list’ men for life just because they offended their employers. 1892 Pall Mall Gaz. 29 Nov. 7/2 There are heavy penalties, too, for black-listing, or in any other way trying to induce persons to leave their employment [in Russia]. 1899 Daily News 18 Jan. 4/5 The Plasterers' Union..prohibiting their members from working for certain black-listed firms. 1903 Westm. Gaz. 8 Jan. 7/2 A stoker in the Royal Navy, who has been black-listed for several weeks as a deserter. 1955 Times 5 May 11/3 The recent blacklisting of two British and one Italian cargo steamers by the Alexandria customs administration. |