BLACKBALL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Blackball

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noun

Blackball n.

A composition for blacking shoes, boots, etc.; also, one for taking impressions of engraved work.

A ball of black color, esp. one used as a negative in voting; in this sense usually two words.

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Etymology of 'Blackball'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Blackball" Quotes from Famous Books

... to finish that one. You're a matchmaking old maid," declared Esme, wrinkling her delicate nose at him, "and if you're ever put up for our sewing-circle I shall blackball you. Gossip!" ...

— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... construction of this Index. We, that are not by name included, may we consider ourselves indirectly licensed? Silence, I should think, gives consent. And if it wasn't that the present Pope, being a horrid Radical, would be sure to blackball me as an honest Tory, I would send him a copy of my Opera Omnia, requesting his Holiness to say, by return of post, whether I ranked amongst the chaff winnowed by St. Peter's flail, or had his gracious ...

— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

Words linked to "Blackball" : vote out, defeat, barring, vote down, cast out, veto, shun, shoot down, riddance, contradict, oppose, ban, kill, throw out, ostracise, expulsion, kick out, negative, ejection, exclusion, vote, controvert