Black, n.
 1. That which is destitute of light or whiteness; the darkest color, or rather a destitution of all color; as, a cloth has a good black.
 Black is the badge of hell,
 The hue of dungeons, and the suit of night.   --Shak.
 2. A black pigment or dye.
 3. A negro; a person whose skin is of a black color, or shaded with black; esp. a member or descendant of certain African races.
 4. A black garment or dress; as, she wears black; pl. (Obs.) Mourning garments of a black color; funereal drapery.
    Friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like show death terrible.   --Bacon.
    That was the full time they used to wear blacks for the death of their fathers.   --Sir T. North.
 5. The part of a thing which is distinguished from the rest by being black.
    The black or sight of the eye.   --Sir K. Digby.
 6. A stain; a spot; a smooch.
    Defiling her white lawn of chastity with ugly blacks of lust.   --Rowley.
 Black and white, writing or print; as, I must have that statement in black and white.
 Blue black, a pigment of a blue black color.
 Ivory black, a fine kind of animal charcoal prepared by calcining ivory or bones. When ground it is the chief ingredient of the ink used in copperplate printing.
 Berlin black. See under Berlin.


 Bone n.
 1. Anat. The hard, calcified tissue of the skeleton of vertebrate animals, consisting very largely of calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, and gelatine; as, blood and bone.
 Note: ☞ Even in the hardest parts of bone there are many minute cavities containing living matter and connected by minute canals, some of which connect with larger canals through which blood vessels ramify.
 2. One of the pieces or parts of an animal skeleton; as, a rib or a thigh bone; a bone of the arm or leg; also, any fragment of bony substance. (pl.) The frame or skeleton of the body.
 3. Anything made of bone, as a bobbin for weaving bone lace.
 4. pl. Two or four pieces of bone held between the fingers and struck together to make a kind of music.
 5. pl. Dice.
 6. Whalebone; hence, a piece of whalebone or of steel for a corset.
 7. Fig.: The framework of anything.
 A bone of contention, a subject of contention or dispute.
 A bone to pick, something to investigate, or to busy one's self about; a dispute to be settled (with some one).
 Bone ash, the residue from calcined bones; -- used for making cupels, and for cleaning jewelry.
 Bone black Chem., the black, carbonaceous substance into which bones are converted by calcination in close vessels; -- called also animal charcoal. It is used as a decolorizing material in filtering sirups, extracts, etc., and as a black pigment. See Ivory black, under Black.
 Bone cave, a cave in which are found bones of extinct or recent animals, mingled sometimes with the works and bones of man. --Am. Cyc.
 Bone dust, ground or pulverized bones, used as a fertilizer.
 Bone earth Chem., the earthy residuum after the calcination of bone, consisting chiefly of phosphate of calcium.
 Bone lace, a lace made of linen thread, so called because woven with bobbins of bone.
 Bone oil, an oil obtained by heating bones (as in the manufacture of bone black), and remarkable for containing the nitrogenous bases, pyridine and quinoline, and their derivatives; -- also called Dippel's oil.
 Bone setter. Same as Bonesetter. See in the Vocabulary.
 Bone shark Zool., the basking shark.
 Bone spavin. See under Spavin.
 Bone turquoise, fossil bone or tooth of a delicate blue color, sometimes used as an imitation of true turquoise.
 Bone whale Zool., a right whale.
 To be upon the bones of, to attack. [Obs.]
 To make no bones, to make no scruple; not to hesitate. [Low]
 To pick a bone with, to quarrel with, as dogs quarrel over a bone; to settle a disagreement. [Colloq.]


 I·vo·ry n.; pl. Ivories
 1. The hard, white, opaque, fine-grained substance constituting the tusks of the elephant. It is a variety of dentine, characterized by the minuteness and close arrangement of the tubes, as also by their double flexure. It is used in manufacturing articles of ornament or utility.
 Note: ☞ Ivory is the name commercially given not only to the substance constituting the tusks of the elephant, but also to that of the tusks of the hippopotamus and walrus, the hornlike tusk of the narwhal, etc.
 2. The tusks themselves of the elephant, etc.
 3. Any carving executed in ivory.
 4. pl. Teeth; as, to show one's ivories. [Slang]
 Ivory black. See under Black, n.
 Ivory gull Zool., a white Arctic gull (Larus eburneus).
 Ivory nut Bot., the nut of a species of palm, the Phytephas macroarpa, often as large as a hen's egg. When young the seed contains a fluid, which gradually hardness into a whitish, close-grained, albuminous substance, resembling the finest ivory in texture and color, whence it is called vegetable ivory. It is wrought into various articles, as buttons, chessmen, etc. The palm is found in New Grenada. A smaller kind is the fruit of the Phytephas microarpa. The nuts are known in commerce as Corosso nuts.
 Ivory palm Bot., the palm tree which produces ivory nuts.
 Ivory shell Zool., any species of Eburna, a genus of marine gastropod shells, having a smooth surface, usually white with red or brown spots.
 Vegetable ivory, the meat of the ivory nut. See Ivory nut (above).

 ◄ ►


 ivory black
      n : a black pigment made from grinding burnt ivory in oil