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Black book   Listen
noun
Black book  n.  
1.
One of several books of a political character, published at different times and for different purposes; so called either from the color of the binding, or from the character of the contents.
2.
A book compiled in the twelfth century, containing a description of the court of exchequer of England, an official statement of the revenues of the crown, etc.
3.
A book containing details of the enormities practiced in the English monasteries and religious houses, compiled by order of their visitors under Henry VIII., to hasten their dissolution.
4.
A book of admiralty law, of the highest authority, compiled in the reign of Edw. III.
5.
A book kept for the purpose of registering the names of persons liable to censure or punishment, as in the English universities, or the English armies.
6.
Any book which treats of necromancy.
7.
A book containing a black list.
8.
A book kept by a single man, containing a list of women whom he calls occasionally for a social date; usually used in the phrase little black book. (jocose)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Black book" Quotes from Famous Books



... chess-player does the pieces, and he moved them against me. At the first, they talked of nothing less than trying me for treason, since the projected arrest of the Polish conspirator and yourself—kinswoman of the Dobronowska inscribed in the black book of the Russian and Polish police—was foiled on my territory. The major affirmed that he had seen me not only looking on at the defeat of his posse, but holding my farmers in check not to hasten to their assistance. He alleged that ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... his firearms and saddle were beauties. He was a dandy all right, and a fine-looking man, over six feet tall, with swarthy complexion and hair like a raven's wing. He was too nice a man for the company he was in. We looked the 'Black Book' over afterward for any description of him. At that time there were over four thousand criminals and outlaws described in it, but there was no description that would fit him. For this reason we supposed that he must live far ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... represented, assumes, in its ground plan, the form of the letter E—said to have been intended as a compliment to the queen, who, as appears from the Black Book of Warwick, visited this place ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... a bit ill, thank God. Only there's a little black book as I took for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this one, "C, 15;" but I can't read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him again; if you be so kind to read it, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... this desolation was the purpose of the legal proceedings at Salem. It was believed by fairly intelligent people that Satan carried with him a black book in which he induced his victims to write their names with their own blood, signifying thereby that they had given their souls into his keeping, and were henceforth his liegemen. The rendezvous of these lost and damned was ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... read it," said a small man in front of Strong. "Gimme that thing!" Strong handed him the black book and told the man where to look. The man considered it for five minutes, then turned to the crowd. "He's right! We're sitting on the hottest uranium rock in ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... that she had often at night been carried bodily to witch-Sabbaths; in one of which she was first presented to the Prince of Darkness, when she abjured God and the Virgin at the same time. Her name, with the alteration of Maria into Emma, was written in a black book, and she herself was stamped on the back as the Devil's property, in return for which she received the promise of seventy years of life, and all she might wish for. She stated that she had often, at night, gone into the cellar of the chateau and drank the best wine; in the shape ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... time, and perhaps in another couple of hours people will remember that he was once famous; then, however, night will come, and with her oblivion; and already at this moment, while we are entering his sins against style in the black book, the sable mantle of twilight is falling upon his fame. For he who has sinned against the German language has desecrated the mystery of all our Germanity. Throughout all the confusion and the changes of races and of customs, the German language alone, as though ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... blue silk pajamas and standing by her bed with her hand on the light to put the room in darkness, when she changed her mind and opening a table drawer brought out a little black book—a "Line-a-day" diary. This she had kept for seven years. Many of the pencil entries were almost illegible and there were notes and references to nights and afternoons long since forgotten, for it was not an intimate diary, even though it began with the immemorial "I am going ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... in each household originate from the diversity of characters, the numberless incidents of passion, and the habits of the married people give to this black book so many variations, the lines in it are multiplied or erased with such rapidity that a friend of the author has called this Index The History of Changes ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... back to ejaculate, and murmured, 'Barto Rizzo! defend me from him! Why, he levies contribution upon us in the Valtellina for the good of Milan; and if we don't pay, we're all of us down in a black book. Disobey, and it's worse than swearing you won't pay taxes to the legitimate—perdition to it!—Government. Do you know Barto Rizzo, padrone? You don't know him, I hope? I'm sure you wouldn't ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... nerve in facing such phenomena, I continued to play "Yankee Doodle." In spite of this counter-attraction, toward which all four boys turned uneasy glances, I held my audience. The Black Spectre, with a black book under its arm, drew nearer. Still I continued to play and nod my head and tap my toe. I felt like some modern Pied Piper piping away the children of these modern hills—piping them away from older people who could not ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... were gladly accepted, and in a moment the whole of the garrison sank down as if they were dead, and Virgilius himself had much ado to keep awake. He did not know how to fight the magician, but with a great effort struggled to open his Black Book, which told him what spells to use. In an instant all his foes seemed turned to stone, and where each man was there he stayed. Some were half way up the ladders, some had one foot over the wall, but wherever they might ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... formality and stateliness in its delivery, and to think that all is not well if the pulpit have not a golden fringe round it, and a goodly cushion in front of it, and if the sermon be not fairly written in a black book, to be smoothed upon the cushion in a majestic manner before beginning; all this we shall duly come to expect: but we shall at the same time consider the treatise thus prepared as something to which it is our duty to listen without ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... these, however, there are in the Rolls House many other documents which confirm and complete the statements of the writers of those letters. There is a part of what seems to have been a digest of the 'Black Book'—an epitome of iniquities, under the title of the 'Compendium Compertorum.' There are also reports from private persons, private entreaties for enquiry, depositions of monks in official examinations, and other similar papers, which, in many instances, are too offensive to be produced, and ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... ready, should prosecution ensue, Burton compiled what he called The Black Book, which consisted of specimens, of, to use his own expression, the "turpiloquium" of the Bible and Shakespeare. It was never required for its original purpose, but he worked some portions into the Terminal Essay to The Arabian Nights. [497] And here it may be said that when ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... turned to the preacher; a man of about forty, of an austere but ordinary (we might almost say low) type of face, closely shaven, with an ivory crucifix at his side and a small black book in his hand. He makes his way through the crowded aisles, and ascends the new pulpit in the centre of the church, where everyone of the vast congregation can both ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... And a certain black book came promptly out of the doctor's pocket. John Warden's name, and street, and number, and business were written therein, and John Warden felt for the first time in his life as though he had a Christian brother in that great city, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... on a cask turned upside down, holding on his knees a black book in which were written in red letters the names of the pirates, and read them one by one in a loud tone. Often nobody answered and, at the end of a long pause, some one growled: "Dead," and the name was instantly erased from ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... Robert Peel, a son of the distinguished statesman, and was afterwards to become third baronet. In a curious little work, typical of the period, The Black Book of the British Aristocracy, there is an acid allusion to the matter: "This bright youth has just taken under his protection the notorious Lola Montez, and was lately to be observed walking with her, in true diplomatic style, in the streets of a ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... up when he first came down. Sent that back, if I recall the matter correctly." Colonel Varney went to a desk in the corner of the room, unlocked it, drew forth a black book, and running his fingers through the pages stopped at the letter K. "Yes, sent back his legislative pass, but I've known 'em to do that when they were holding out for something more. There must be somebody who can ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill



Words linked to "Black book" :   blacklist, list, listing, shitlist



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