ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Blackout

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Pronunciation /ˈblæk.aʊt/ · Part of speech noun

Quick meaning: Blackout is a noun meaning A temporary loss of consciousness.

Meaning

A temporary loss of consciousness.

More Meanings

  1. A temporary loss of memory.
  2. A large-scale power failure, and resulting loss of electricity to consumers.
  3. An instance of censorship, especially a temporary one.
  4. (Internet) An intentional outage of a website or other online service, typically as a form of protest.
  5. (attributive) The blocking out of as much light as possible.
  6. (slang, criminology, rare) A mass murder committed, usually in an urban area, to eliminate potential witnesses of a previous crime.
  7. (historical) The mandatory blocking of all light emanating from buildings, as well as outdoor and street lighting as a measure against aerial bombing or naval attack, as imposed during, e.g., World War II.

Example Sentences

media blackout
the 2012 English Wikipedia blackout
According to a press release issued by the clinic staff, a blackout by the local press had kept the public uninformed about the clinic's harassment.
There have been several examples of space weather affecting power grids in the last few decades, notably blackouts caused by GICs [geomagnetically induced currents] in Canada in 1989 and Sweden in 2003.

Word Forms

Synonyms for blackout

Depending on context, synonyms include blankout, faint, syncope, outage, amnesia, brownout.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include amnesia, brownout, dimout, darkness, fainting, halt.

Related Dictionary Tools

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.