Expressions and Phrases with "Black" in Them Quiz

Answer: sheep

The person who is a "black sheep" of their family is someone who is considered strange, or not part of the regular family because they are different. If you can imagine a group of sheep where most of them are white, the black one would stand out and be different.

Answer: hole

When we have lost something and we believe that it is gone forever, we sometimes say that it has fallen down a black hole. A black hole is a collapsed star where the gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Answer: out

If you have a "blackout" it means that the power is lost to a whole area of your town or city. The last time I experienced a blackout, it was because of heavy snow. It is called a blackout because there are no lights in a city during one. Perhaps the most famous American blackout was in New York City from July 13-14, 1977. It has been said that hip hop was born from that blackout.

Answer: in the

If you are "in the red" it means that you are losing money, but if you are "in the black" you are gaining money. The colors come from the old days, when red ink was used to show debts and black was used to show profits. Even today, software like Excel will print profits in black and debts in red.

Answer: look

When you give someone a "black look" it means that you are staring at them in anger. I hate it when someone eats all my pie. No one is sure why an angry look is called "a black look", but it could be because it is associated with black magic. Many colours are connected to feelings, yellow - cowardliness, green - envy, blue - sadness...

Answer: book

If someone is in your "black book" it means that you are angry with and don't trust them. Eating someone's last piece of pie can put you in their black book for a long time. Some people keep black books of people they hate and want revenge on. One of the most famous was President Nixon, who kept an "enemies list" - his own black book.

Answer: white

When something is "black and white" it means there is no debate or doubt about it. You can see the answer clearly. We have several expressions that talk about something that is clearly different. One you may have heard is "night and day".

Answer: pot

If you say that someone is "the pot calling the kettle black" what you mean is that the first person (the pot) is saying that the second person (the kettle) is bad even though they themselves are worse. This expression comes from when we used fire to cook and a kettle would be put next to the fire to heat and so would get a little black, but the pot would be put directly over the fire and so be far blacker.

Answer: blue

This is the easiest of the expressions to understand, because a bruise will turn "black and blue" a day or two after you are injured. The reason that your skin turns that colour is that when you are hit hard you bleed under your skin. At first, the bruise looks brown from the fresh blood, but as it gets older, the color changes and your body takes away the old blood.

Answer: gold

The term "black gold" is used to mean oil. Oil did not used to be worth very much and many people who had it on their property hated it, because it was considered a nuisance. But when we got cars, the "black gold" was worth a lot and many people, including my grandfather, Jed, became rich because of it.