Meaning
A day marked by disaster, defeat, tragedy or heavy loss; commonly said of accidents, military defeats, sackings and market crashes ('a black day for the industry'). It can also be used personally, of a thoroughly wretched day. The plural and comparative forms ('one of the blackest days') intensify the same idea. Neutral to solemn; journalistic shorthand for disasters and anniversaries of loss. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The image rests on black's ancient association with death, mourning and evil. The documented history runs through specific named catastrophes rather than a general calendar: Black Monday, 14 April 1360, when freezing weather killed men and horses in Edward III's army during the Hundred Years' War, was remembered as a proverbially unlucky Monday, recorded by chroniclers and later antiquarians such as John Brand in Popular Antiquities (1725). Medieval calendars did indeed mark fixed unlucky days - the so-called Egyptian days, two per month on which one avoided starting enterprises or bleeding patients - but those were not called 'black days', so the popular claim that the idiom descends directly from a calendar of unlucky days is only loosely supported and should be treated as background rather than cause. What does come from calendar practice is the relative 'black-letter day' for an unlucky or tragic day, first recorded 1750-60, from printing festivals in red ink and ordinary days in black. Later financial panics, tagged Black Friday and Black Monday, fixed the black-plus-weekday pattern for markets.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a black day for someone or something
- Black Monday (and other black + weekday forms)
- black-letter day
- one of the blackest days
Usage Examples
- It was a black day for the airline when the second grounding was announced.
- Supporters still call the cup final defeat the blackest day in the club's history.
- Losing both the contract and the plant in one week made March the blackest month the town had known.