black holen.
/blak ˈhəʊl/, U.S. /ˌblæk ˈhoʊl/ 1.
a. gen. A place of confinement as punishment.In later use often with allusion to Black Hole of Calcutta at Phrases.
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society > authority > punishment > imprisonment > prison > [noun]
quarternOE
prisona1200
jailc1275
lodgec1290
galleya1300
chartrea1325
ward1338
keepingc1384
prison-house1419
lying-house1423
javel1483
tollbooth1488
kidcotec1515
clinkc1530
warding-place1571
the hangman's budget1589
Newgate1592
gehenna1594
Lob's pound1597
caperdewsie1599
footman's inn1604
cappadochio1607
pena1640
marshalsea1652
log-house1662
bastille1663
naskin1673
state prison1684
tronk1693
stone-doublet1694
iron or stone doublet1698
college1699
nask1699
quod1699
shop1699
black hole1707
start1735
coop1785
blockhouse1796
stone jug1796
calaboose1797
factory1806
bull-pen1809
steel1811
jigger1812
jug1815
kitty1825
rock pile1830
bughouse1842
zindan1844
model1845
black house1846
tench1850
mill1851
stir1851
hoppet1855
booby hatch1859
caboose1865
cooler1872
skookum house1873
chokey1874
gib1877
nick1882
choker1884
logs1888
booby house1894
big house1905
hoosegow1911
can1912
detention camp1916
pokey1919
slammer1952
joint1953
slam1960
1707 Daily Courant 26 Aug. The said Blondevil, upon very small Provocations hath Beaten, Bolted and put into a Place called the Black Hole, and kept there for several Hours, several of the said Prisoners.
1750 M. Clancy Sharper iv. ii. 62 The Jade had the Impudence to sink a Moidore of the Money he gave her... She lies ever since in the black Hole under the Vault.
1831 A. A. Watts House-hunting in Pocket Mag. Lit. June 258 The bed-chambers (the black-holes of her establishment).
1847 W. M. Thackeray Vanity Fair (1848) ii. 8 Do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black-hole?
1889 C. Edwardes Sardinia 375 This Black Hole of a cattle-boat.
1920 J. S. Fletcher Dead Men's Money xxxv. 284 There's no harm come to me at all, barring the weary waiting in this black hole of a place!
1998 Courier-Mail (Queensland) (Nexis) 10 Aug. 5 Children at a Brisbane youth detention centre were sexually abused, drugged, starved and locked in a ‘black hole’ for punishment, according to a therapist and a former inmate.
b. Military. The punishment cell or ‘lock-up’ in a barracks; the guardroom; (also) spec. = Black Hole of Calcutta at Phrases.The official designation until 1868.
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society > authority > punishment > imprisonment > prison > [noun] > military > guardroom or punishment cell
black hole1727
wardroom1853
Q1883
1727 S. H. Jrnl. 13 Mar. in J. W. Fortescue Following Drum (1931) i. 5 Childley was confined to the black hole or dungeon for the space of a night.
1758 J. Z. Holwell Genuine Narr. Black-hole Calcutta 9 The guard..ordered us to go into the room at the southernmost end of the barracks, commonly called the Black-Hole prison.
1758 J. Blake Plan Marine Syst. 49 What happened lately in the black-hole at Bengal.
1816 C. James New Mil. Dict. Black-hole, a place in which soldiers may be confined by the commanding officer... In this place they are generally restricted to bread and water.
1844 Queen's Regulations & Orders Army 121 Confinement to the Black Hole..to be reserved for cases of Drunkenness, Riot, Violence, or Insolence to Superiors.
1868 Queen's Regulations & Orders Army ⁋789 (note) The term lock up room and black hole is to be abolished.
1920 J. H. Curle Shadow-show xi. 243 Suraj-ud-dauleh, Nawab of Bengal, perpetrates upon the British at Calcutta the massacre of the Black Hole.
2010 Coventry Evening Tel. (Nexis) 2 Jan. 11 The Nawab of Bengal, who imprisoned 146 British in the notorious ‘black hole’.
2. A deep pool in a river, spec. one at the base of a waterfall.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > water > rivers and streams > system > [noun] > pool as part of
weelc897
poolOE
dub1535
linn1577
potc1650
waterhole1688
plumbc1780
swimming hole1867
black hole1869
water pit1881
swilly-hole1890
swim-hole1924
1869 B. J. Harker Rambles Upper Wharfedale iii. 58 Lee's gibbet-irons were found a long time ago, in one of the black holes in the river at Ghaistrills.
1890 W. Black New Prince Fortunatus I. 229 A circular deep black hole, in which the waters collect before dashing and roaring down between the great grey boulders.
1908 Amer. Mag. June 132/2 The swirling waters of the black hole in the river on the other side of the meadow.
1912 Scribner's Mag. Aug. 207 The pool, a black hole in the river, was thirty odd feet long and varied in width from twenty to five feet, irregularly.
1986 W. H. Calvin River that flows Uphill 197 If you think that white holes are bad, the boatmen joke, just wait until you see that black hole in Lava Falls.
2007 J. Long Deeper xxxiv. 298 They had no warning about the pothole at the end, no roar of a waterfall, no jagged shoals. The river simply slipped over the lip into a silent black hole.
3. Astronomy.
a. A circumscribed region of the sky seemingly devoid of visible stars; = coal sack n. 2. Cf. vacuity n. 8b.
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the world > the universe > constellation > nebula > [noun] > dark nebula > coal-sack
cloud1694
coal sack1844
black hole1876
1876 E. Beckett Astron. without Math. (ed. 6) v. 324 There are patches [of the Milky Way] like black holes in it which contain no stars or scarcely any.
1876 tr. J. Verne Voy. round World: S. Amer. xxv. 290 Last of all he showed him the ‘black hole’, where all stellary matter seems absolutely wanting.
1919 Adolfo Stahl Lect. Astron. (Astron. Soc. Pacific) 167 ‘Black holes’ have long been known in certain regions of the Milky Way.
1995 A. Kerle Uluru iii. 51 It is so opaque that it hides the stars behind it and gives the impression of a black hole in the sky.
b. A region of space within which the gravitational field is so strong that no matter or radiation can escape, except perhaps by quantum-mechanical tunnelling (cf. Hawking radiation at Hawking n.2), and which is thought to be due to a very dense, compact mass inside the region.Black holes are thought to be formed when a massive star exhausts its nuclear fuel and collapses under its own gravity. If the star is massive enough it will collapse and produce a singularity (singularity n. 9e). Before this stage is reached, within a certain radius (the event horizon) light itself becomes trapped and the object becomes invisible.massive, Schwarzschild, supermassive black hole, etc.: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the universe > star > kind of star > black hole > [noun]
black hole1964
Schwarzschild black hole1971
1964 Sci. News Let. 18 Jan. 39/1 As mass is added to a degenerate star a sudden collapse will take place and the intense gravitational field of the star will close in on itself. Such a star then forms a ‘black hole’ in the universe.
1967 Science 8 Dec. 1344/2 Among these are the ‘missing matter’ predicted to be present by Einstein's theory and the ‘black holes’ predicted to result from the ‘continued gravitational collapse’ of an over-compact mass.
1974 L. Niven & J. Pournelle Mote in God's Eye (1975) iii. xxviii. 278 'Twill go supernova and then become a black hole.
1977 Sci. Amer. Jan. 34/3 A black hole weighing a billion tons..would have a radius of about 10−13 centimeter.
1982 V. N. McIntyre Wrath of Khan iv. 83 It's got a black hole with an accretion disk that will jump right out and grab you.
1986 Nature 8 May 111/1 Quantum mechanics allows a particle to tunnel out of a black hole.
2008 Daily Tel. 10 Sept. 1/4 Doomsayers have claimed that it could create a black hole to swallow the Earth.
4. A place where items unaccountably disappear without trace; somewhere or something impenetrable. Also: a place from which communication with the rest of the world is impossible.Now chiefly apprehended as a figurative use of sense 3b.
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the world > physical sensation > sight and vision > invisibility > [noun] > vanishing or disappearing > place credited with disappearances
black hole1941
Bermuda Triangle1964
the Devil's Triangle1973
1941 Astounding Sci.-Fiction Feb. 48/1 There, somewhere, was the mysterious Black Hole that had sucked a score of ether ships into oblivion since men first found this God-forsaken planet.
1980 Time 16 June 64 To the 1.7 million people added to the jobless rolls in April and May, the U.S. economy may well seem to have..been sucked into a black hole.
1991 R. Rosenbaum Trav. with Dr. Death Introd. p. xviii Meyer's missing diary..has become a black hole into which the secret truths of our time have disappeared.
1997 Independent 19 May i. 19/2 The so-called ‘black hole’ in the government accounts.
1999 New Yorker 23 Aug. 137/1 Hemmed in by high islands, I was in a radiophonic black hole.
2005 Simply Perfect Storage Early Spring 35 Small containers seem to mysteriously disappear into the same black hole that sucks up your socks.
Phrases
Black Hole of Calcutta (also with lower-case initials in first and second elements).
a. The punishment cell at the barracks in Fort William, Calcutta (now Kolkata), in which, on 19 June 1756, after the fall of the fort, 64 British and Anglo-Indian soldiers and civilians were confined overnight in crowded conditions, only 21 surviving until the morning; (also) this incident. Now historical.Early accounts report the number confined as 146, with 23 survivors.
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1761 Public Advertiser 28 Apr. The Mecklenburgers..Sufferings could be compared only to those of the English Gentlemen who were shut up in the Black-Hole of Calcutta in 1756.
1761 Gentleman's & London Mag. July 314/1 An English gentleman, who, in the Black-hole of Calcutta (I think) appeas'd his..thirst, by imbibing his own sweat.
1860 C. Knight Pop. Hist. Eng. VI. xiv. 222 The fearful tragedy known as that of the Black Hole of Calcutta took place on the 20th of June, 1756, after the city had been taken by the Subahdar of Bengal.
1914 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 313 This tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta will ever remain as the most drastic demonstration..of the bondage of man to the air that surrounds him.
2002 M. Collier & W. Marriott Colonization & Confl. 23/2 The Black Hole of Calcutta became one of the great imperial myths, designed to horrify later generations.
b. In similative phrases.
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1784 Gazetteer & New Daily Advertiser 20 Sept. 2/1 We may be pretty confident that this Church will never become like the Black Hole of Calcutta, dangerous from being over crouded.
1807 Athenæum Jan. 2 The modern custom of cramming rooms at routs and other parties, as full as the black-hole of Calcutta.
1836 R. P. Smith Actress of Padua II. 139 The other watering places were as crowded and uncomfortable as the Black Hole of Calcutta.
1904 M. Adams in F. J. Snell Memorials Old Devonshire 271 Their quarters, which resembled the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’.
1995 R. Pilcher Coming Home (1996) 349 ‘It's be nice to sit down.’ ‘I know. Like the Black Hole of Calcutta in here.’
c. An oppressive, very confined or crowded space; a place with unpleasant or unsanitary conditions.
ΚΠ
1849 Punch 17 236/2 Crowded to suffocation... How long are our Theatres to be turned into black-holes of Calcutta?
1867 Galaxy 1 Jan. 74 Why that is the black hole of Calcutta. My nose touches the ceiling. I should suffocate in five minutes.
1914 U.S. Naval Inst. Proc. Jan.–Feb. 1712 That forepeak was a black hole of Calcutta, especially at sea, and the doctor's smelly drugs helped it to its reputation.
1971 P. Young Penguin Summer v. 50 It was a real black hole of Calcutta when both doors were closed.
1986 S. Longstreet General xiii. 104 I must have slept openmouthed for some time because..my mouth was the real Black Hole of Calcutta.
2006 G. Hollingshead Bedlam 105 A strip of..lawn between the east wing and the Infirmary (the sod-ceiling part, now I think of it, of our Black Hole of Calcutta).
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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