blackball
/ˈblækbɔːl/
"blackball" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“blackball” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
Corpus desk
Index EN-blackball · blackball · English
blackball · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | blackball |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈblækbɔːl/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “blackball” in English
Rare enough to double-check
blackball is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈblækbɔːl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for blackball in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From black + ball. The correct English form is blackball, spelled B-L-A-C-K-B-A-L-L.
Definition
- 1A rejection; a vote against admitting someone.
- 2A black ball used to indicate such a negative vote.
- 3A kind of large black sweet, a black-colored gobstopper.
- 4A substance for blacking shoes, boots, etc. or for taking impressions of engraved work.
- 5A game, a standardized version of the English version of eight-ball.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how blackball appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Regardless how many other people may have voted to approve a candidate for membership, a single blackball will reject the candidate.
Etymology
From black + ball.
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.