black hole
/blæk ˈhoʊl/
"black-hole" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“black hole” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A place of punitive confinement; a lockup or cell; a military guardroom.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | black hole |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /blæk ˈhoʊl/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “black hole” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
black hole is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /blæk ˈhoʊl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 6 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for black hole in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: In reference to the physical concept (region of spacetime with extreme gravitational pull), physicist Hong-Yee Chiu attributed the term to his colleague Robert H. Dicke, who stated around 1960–1961 that the objects were like the Black Hole of Calcutta. The … The correct English form is black hole, spelled B-L-A-C-K- -H-O-L-E.
Definition
- 1A place of punitive confinement; a lockup or cell; a military guardroom.
- 2A region of spacetime that exerts a gravitational pull strong enough that no matter or energy, not even light, can escape it.
- 3A void into which things disappear for good; an inscrutable area or subject.
- 4A dangerous optical illusion that can occur on a nighttime approach with dark, featureless terrain between the aircraft and a brightly-lit runway, where the aircraft appears to the pilots to be higher up than it actually is, potentially triggering a premature or overly-steep descent and a crash short of the runway.
- 5A place where incoming traffic is silently discarded.
- 6A bit bucket; a place of permanent oblivion for data.
Etymology
In reference to the physical concept (region of spacetime with extreme gravitational pull), physicist Hong-Yee Chiu attributed the term to his colleague Robert H. Dicke, who stated around 1960–1961 that the objects were like the Black Hole of Calcutta. The first known usage in print was by journalist Ann Ewing in 1964. Widespread popularization of the term is generally credited to a lecture in 1967 by the physicist John Wheeler.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “black hole”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-L-A-C-K- -H-O-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /blæk ˈhoʊl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.