"black square" meaning in English

See black square in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: black squares [plural]
Etymology: From black + square. Etymology templates: {{af|en|black|square}} black + square Head templates: {{en-noun}} black square (plural black squares)
  1. A predominantly black image, posted by users of social media, as a demonstration of support for awareness and protest campaigns, particularly those related to racism and police brutality. [from 2020s] Categories (topical): Internet, Social justice
    Sense id: en-black_square-en-noun-D6g~vlJC Disambiguation of Internet: 95 5 Disambiguation of Social justice: 97 3 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 96 4 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 94 6 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 94 6
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, square.
    Sense id: en-black_square-en-noun-UFOoCwka

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "black",
        "3": "square"
      },
      "expansion": "black + square",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From black + square.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "black squares",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "black square (plural black squares)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "96 4",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "95 5",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Internet",
          "orig": "en:Internet",
          "parents": [
            "Computing",
            "Networking",
            "Technology",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "97 3",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Social justice",
          "orig": "en:Social justice",
          "parents": [
            "Leftism",
            "Politics",
            "Society",
            "Sociology",
            "Ideologies",
            "All topics",
            "Social sciences",
            "Fundamental",
            "Sciences"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 June 2, Andrew Griffin, “Blackout Tuesday: What do Instagram black squares mean – and how can you take part?”, in The Independent (article), archived from the original on 2025-02-12:",
          "text": "Instagram is filling up with black squares in the latest movement to protest against racial inequality and police brutality.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 June 2, Jessica Bursztynsky, Sarah Whitten, “Instagram users flood the app with millions of Blackout Tuesday posts”, in CNBC (article), archived from the original on 2020-06-02:",
          "text": "Instagram users are flooding the platform with black squares in support of black victims of police violence as part of a Blackout Tuesday protest.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 February 24, Mariah L. Wellman, “Black Squares for Black Lives? Performative Allyship as Credibility Maintenance for Social Media Influencers on Instagram”, in Zizi Papacharissi, Viki Conner (asst.), editors, Social Media + Society, volume 8, number 1 (journal article), SAGE Publications Ltd., →DOI, →ISSN, archived from the original on 2022-07-14:",
          "text": "In June 2020, millions of Instagram users shared black squares along with hashtags including #BlackOutTuesday and #BlackLivesMatter before pausing their social media content for the day.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 October 3, Bailey Calfee, “NAACP campaign speaks to ‘black square’ posters to reinvigorate anti-racism movement”, in Campaign US (article), Haymarket Media Group Ltd., archived from the original on 2024-10-08:",
          "text": "In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, 28 million people posted black squares on their Instagram feeds for Blackout Tuesday, an online form of protest against the systemic racism faced by Black Americans in the U.S.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A predominantly black image, posted by users of social media, as a demonstration of support for awareness and protest campaigns, particularly those related to racism and police brutality."
      ],
      "id": "en-black_square-en-noun-D6g~vlJC",
      "links": [
        [
          "social media",
          "social media#English"
        ],
        [
          "awareness",
          "awareness#English"
        ],
        [
          "racism",
          "racism#English"
        ],
        [
          "police brutality",
          "police brutality#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "A predominantly black image, posted by users of social media, as a demonstration of support for awareness and protest campaigns, particularly those related to racism and police brutality. [from 2020s]"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, square."
      ],
      "id": "en-black_square-en-noun-UFOoCwka",
      "links": [
        [
          "black",
          "black#English"
        ],
        [
          "square",
          "square#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "black square"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:Internet",
    "en:Social justice"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "black",
        "3": "square"
      },
      "expansion": "black + square",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From black + square.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "black squares",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "black square (plural black squares)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 June 2, Andrew Griffin, “Blackout Tuesday: What do Instagram black squares mean – and how can you take part?”, in The Independent (article), archived from the original on 2025-02-12:",
          "text": "Instagram is filling up with black squares in the latest movement to protest against racial inequality and police brutality.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 June 2, Jessica Bursztynsky, Sarah Whitten, “Instagram users flood the app with millions of Blackout Tuesday posts”, in CNBC (article), archived from the original on 2020-06-02:",
          "text": "Instagram users are flooding the platform with black squares in support of black victims of police violence as part of a Blackout Tuesday protest.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 February 24, Mariah L. Wellman, “Black Squares for Black Lives? Performative Allyship as Credibility Maintenance for Social Media Influencers on Instagram”, in Zizi Papacharissi, Viki Conner (asst.), editors, Social Media + Society, volume 8, number 1 (journal article), SAGE Publications Ltd., →DOI, →ISSN, archived from the original on 2022-07-14:",
          "text": "In June 2020, millions of Instagram users shared black squares along with hashtags including #BlackOutTuesday and #BlackLivesMatter before pausing their social media content for the day.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 October 3, Bailey Calfee, “NAACP campaign speaks to ‘black square’ posters to reinvigorate anti-racism movement”, in Campaign US (article), Haymarket Media Group Ltd., archived from the original on 2024-10-08:",
          "text": "In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, 28 million people posted black squares on their Instagram feeds for Blackout Tuesday, an online form of protest against the systemic racism faced by Black Americans in the U.S.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A predominantly black image, posted by users of social media, as a demonstration of support for awareness and protest campaigns, particularly those related to racism and police brutality."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "social media",
          "social media#English"
        ],
        [
          "awareness",
          "awareness#English"
        ],
        [
          "racism",
          "racism#English"
        ],
        [
          "police brutality",
          "police brutality#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "A predominantly black image, posted by users of social media, as a demonstration of support for awareness and protest campaigns, particularly those related to racism and police brutality. [from 2020s]"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, square."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "black",
          "black#English"
        ],
        [
          "square",
          "square#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "black square"
}

Download raw JSONL data for black square meaning in English (3.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (ce0be54 and f2e72e5). 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.