"black and white" meaning in English

See black and white in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: en-au-black and white.ogg [Australia] Forms: more black and white [comparative], most black and white [superlative]
Etymology: The police car sense reflects a traditional livery scheme for such cars. Etymology templates: {{l|en|livery|livery scheme}} livery scheme Head templates: {{en-adj}} black and white (comparative more black and white, superlative most black and white)
  1. Alternative form of black-and-white (of an image, a video, etc: in black, white, and perhaps shades of grey, rather than in colour) Tags: alt-of, alternative Alternative form of: black-and-white (extra: of an image, a video, etc: in black, white, and perhaps shades of grey, rather than in colour) Related terms: black hat, white hat, gray hat, gray area, us versus them, us-and-them
    Sense id: en-black_and_white-en-adj-VOk0XQa4
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic) Easily divided into diametrically opposing camps or schools of thought. Tags: figuratively, idiomatic Translations (clear cut): mustavalkoinen (Finnish), czarno na białym (Polish)
    Sense id: en-black_and_white-en-adj-Zt16qqwT Disambiguation of 'clear cut': 42 58

Noun

Audio: en-au-black and white.ogg [Australia] Forms: black and whites [plural]
Etymology: The police car sense reflects a traditional livery scheme for such cars. Etymology templates: {{l|en|livery|livery scheme}} livery scheme Head templates: {{en-noun}} black and white (plural black and whites)
  1. (US, slang, law enforcement) A police patrol car. Tags: US, slang Categories (topical): Law enforcement Synonyms: police vehicle Translations (slang: police patrol car): piiska (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-black_and_white-en-noun-y31u2AWd Categories (other): American English, English coordinated pairs, English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English merisms, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English coordinated pairs: 17 14 31 23 16 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 15 28 47 6 4 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 17 23 46 8 6 Disambiguation of English merisms: 12 23 44 13 8 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 14 22 50 8 7 Topics: government, law-enforcement Disambiguation of 'slang: police patrol car': 95 4 1
  2. (US, slang, by extension) The police, a police officer or the clothing they wear. Tags: US, broadly, slang
    Sense id: en-black_and_white-en-noun-3Gll~i5m Categories (other): American English
  3. A type of giant cookie (about 8 inches diameter) with icing on the top side: half white, half dark chocolate. Synonyms: half-moon Related terms: Black Maria Translations (cookie): Amerikaner (German)
    Sense id: en-black_and_white-en-noun-Xhzh7DCc Disambiguation of 'cookie': 0 0 100

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for black and white meaning in English (6.4kB)

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          "ref": "1992, “A Nigga Witta Gun”, in The Chronic, performed by Dr. Dre, Death Row Records",
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          "code": "de",
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          "_dis1": "42 58",
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          "word": "mustavalkoinen"
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      "sense": "slang: police patrol car",
      "word": "piiska"
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      "code": "de",
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      "sense": "cookie",
      "word": "Amerikaner"
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    {
      "code": "fi",
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      "sense": "clear cut",
      "word": "mustavalkoinen"
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      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "clear cut",
      "word": "czarno na białym"
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}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.