Blackball

Pronunciation

• enPR: blăk'bôl', IPA: /ˈblækbɔːl/

Full definition of blackball

Noun

1. A rejection, a vote against admitting someone.
2. A black ball used to indicate such a negative vote.
   Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership, a single blackball will reject the candidate.
3. the act of so rejecting someone.
4. A kind of large black sweet; a niggerball.
5. A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.

Verb

1. (transitive) To vote against, especially in an exclusive organization.
   If you're not from a moneyed, well-connected family, you can count on getting blackballed from the fraternity.
• 1898, Willa Cather, The Westbound TrainWhy, if I had known you all my life I should have grown up in the condition of Adam before the fall, and they would have blackballed me at the clubs.
2. (transitive) To ostracize.