BLACK AND WHITE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does black and white mean? 

• BLACK AND WHITE (noun)
  The noun BLACK AND WHITE has 2 senses:

1. communication by means of written symbols (either printed or handwritten)

2. a black-and-white photograph or slide

  Familiarity information: BLACK AND WHITE used as a noun is rare.

• BLACK AND WHITE (adjective)
  The adjective BLACK AND WHITE has 1 sense:

1. not having or not capable of producing colors

  Familiarity information: BLACK AND WHITE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BLACK AND WHITE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Communication by means of written symbols (either printed or handwritten)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

black and white; written communication; written language

Hypernyms ("black and white" is a kind of...):

communication (something that is communicated by or to or between people or groups)

Meronyms (parts of "black and white"):

folio; leaf (a sheet of any written or printed material (especially in a manuscript or book))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "black and white"):

transcription; written text (something written, especially copied from one medium to another, as a typewritten version of dictation)

writing (letters or symbols that are written or imprinted on a surface to represent the sounds or words of a language)

piece of writing; writing; written material (the work of a writer; anything expressed in letters of the alphabet (especially when considered from the point of view of style and effect))

writing ((usually plural) the collected work of an author)

prescription (written instructions from a physician or dentist to a druggist concerning the form and dosage of a drug to be issued to a given patient)

prescription (written instructions for an optician on the lenses for a given person)

reading; reading material (written material intended to be read)

correspondence (communication by the exchange of letters)

code; codification (a set of rules or principles or laws (especially written ones))

print (the text appearing in a book, newspaper, or other printed publication)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A black-and-white photograph or slide

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

black and white; monochrome

Hypernyms ("black and white" is a kind of...):

exposure; photo; photograph; pic; picture (a representation of a person or scene in the form of a print or transparent slide or in digital format)

• BLACK AND WHITE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not having or not capable of producing colors

Synonyms:

black-and-white; black and white

Context example:

the movie was in black and white

Domain category:

photography; picture taking (the act of taking and printing photographs)

 Context examples 

The hair is short and comes in brindle and white or black and white and some are born brown and white.

(Boston Terrier, NCI Thesaurus)

The coat colors come in black and white, tri-color, red and white, black and gray, and all black.

(Border Collie, NCI Thesaurus)

Coat color may be orange and white, liver and white, black and white, liver tri-color, and black tricolor.

(Brittany Spaniel, NCI Thesaurus)

The medium-length coat is flat or wavy and feathered, and comes in liver and white, and black and white, blue or liver roan.

(English Springer Spaniel, NCI Thesaurus)

In the midst of these was a small black and white ivory box with a sliding lid.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The upper image – in black and white – sports several dozen “haloed” craters.

(Pluto’s ‘Halo’ Craters, NASA)

Under a low-pressure sodium (LPS) lamp, which makes everything appear monochromatic, like a black and white movie with a brownish-yellow filter, everyone looked sick.

(Rosy health and sickly green: color associations play robust role in reading faces, National Institutes of Health)

Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white!—and perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An achromatic color of any lightness between the extremes of black and white.

(Gray, NCI Thesaurus)