black hole

Meaning

Noun

1. A place of punitive confinement; a lockup or cell; a military guardroom.
2. A region of spacetime that exerts a gravitational pull strong enough that no matter or energy, not even light, can escape it.
3. (figuratively) A void into which things disappear for good; an inscrutable area or subject.
4. 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.
5. (Internet, attributive, often) A place where incoming traffic is silently discarded.
6. A bit bucket; a place of permanent oblivion for data.

Verb

To redirect (network traffic, etc.) nowhere; to discard (incoming traffic).

Synonyms

collapsar

punishment cell

bottomless pit

lockup

money pit

lock-up

cell

sweat box

isolation ward

accretion disk

Translations

trou noir

agujero negro

buco nero

buraco negro

forat negre

zwart gat

kara delik

Schwarzes Loch

gurges ater

μαύρη τρύπα

schwarzes Loch

ثقب أسود

pozo

hoyo negro

Pronounced as (IPA)

/blæk ˈhoʊl/

Etymology

In reference to the physical concept (region of spacetime with extreme gravitational pull), physicist Hong-Yee Chiu attributed the term to his colleague by Robert H. Dicke, who stated around 1960–1961 that the objects were like the Black Hole of Calcutta. The first known usage in print was by journalist Ann Ewing in 1964. Widespread popularization of the term is generally credited to a lecture in 1967 by the physicist John Wheeler.