Meaning
Set down in writing or in print, and therefore official, provable or binding. People ask to have an agreement, promise or offer put this way when verbal assurances are not enough; the phrase stresses the authority of the written record over speech. Neutral register, common in legal, business and journalistic contexts; often carries a note of insistence or relief about formal proof. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The pairing of the two colours is ancient in English: the OED's entry for the phrase black and white, covering sixteen senses, has earliest evidence from 1395. The familiar 'in writing' meaning is later: Etymonline dates 'be in black and white', meaning to be in writing or in print, to the 1650s. The image is simply the look of a document, black ink on white paper, and the idiom's force comes from treating that physical contrast as the guarantee of formality. Nothing more exotic lies behind it; the phrase has simply outlived every technology of printing it describes.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- down in black and white
- get it in black and white
- put it in black and white
- written in black and white
Usage Examples
- The letting agent promised the repairs would be finished by June, but the tenants wanted it in black and white before renewing.
- Once the settlement was down in black and white, neither side could quietly change the terms.
- Seeing the total in black and white on the invoice made the overspend impossible to deny.