Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Blackout |
BlackoutNoun1. A suspension of radio or tv broadcasting. 2. Darkness resulting from the extinction of lights (as in a city invisible to enemy aircraft). 3. The failure of electric power for a general region. 4. A momentary loss of consciousness. 5. Partial or total loss of memory: "he has a total blackout for events of the evening". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Aerospace | 1. A fadeout of radio communications due to ionospheric disturbances. Blackouts are most common in, but are not restricted to, the arctic. An arctic blackout may last for days or even weeks during periods of intense auroral activity. Past experiments with high-altitude nuclear detonations have produced blackouts and artificial auroras over the subtropics . 2. A fadeout of radio and telemetry transmission between ground stations and vehicles traveling at high speeds in the atmosphere caused by signal attenuation in passing through ionized boundary layer (plasma sheath) and shock wave regions generated by the vehicle. 3. A vacuum tube characteristic which results from the formation of a dielectric film on the surface of the control grid. A negative charge, accumulated on the film when the grid is driven positive with respect to the cathode, affects the operating characteristics of the tube.4. A condition in which vision is temporarily obscured by a blackness, accompanied by a dullness of certain of the other senses, brought on by decreased blood pressure in the eye and a consequent lack of oxygen, as may occur, e.g., in pulling out of a high-speed dive in an airplane. Compare grayout, redout. (references) |
Electrical Engineering | An abrupt, unanticipated loss of all electrical power. Source: European Union. (references) |
| A fade-out of radiocommunications caused by ionospheric activity. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Energy | A power loss affecting many electricity consumers over a largegeographical area for a significant period of time. (references) |
Medicine | A condition characterized by failure of vision and momentary unconsciousness, due to diminished circulation to the brain and the retina. Source: European Union. (references) |
| Loss of central vision due to positive gravitational acceleration; attributed to restriction of blood supply to the eye. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Post & Telecom | A fadeout that may last several hours or more at a particular frequency. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The term blackout refers to a cessation of electromagnetic activity through electric power transmission systems.In general during peacetime, a blackout is an unintentional total electrical power outage. It is sometimes contrasted with the term brownout which is a reduction in power, and selected power outages, when demand exceeds supply.
However a blackout can be intentional, for instance collectively minimizing external light (during war), especially upwards directed (or reflected) light, to "hide" from enemy aircraft (in the case of an occupied country: the enemy of the occupying force).
See also
- 2003 US-Canada Blackout
- communications blackout
- List of power outages
Alternate meanings
- Alternatively, blackout can mean a short dysfunctioning of the brain (loss of consciousness or not being able to think well).
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Blackout."
Synonyms: BlackoutSynonyms: amnesia (n), brownout (n), dimout (n), memory loss (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Blackout |
| English words defined with "blackout": amnesia ♦ memory loss. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "blackout": arctic blackout ♦ grayout ♦ polar blackout ♦ radio blackout, redout. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Sure, the blackout was a big problem for everybody (Ghostbusters II; writing credit: Dan Aykroyd; Harold Ramis) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Blackout (1950) London Blackout Murders (1943) Barnyard Blackout (1943) Wacky Blackout (1942) Old Blackout Joe (1942) | |
Song Titles | I Like It (performing artist: The Blackout All-stars) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Maximum penalty for disregarding blackout -- $300 fine and 90 days in jail. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | The growing blackout. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | First test blackout from roof of Printcraft building, Washington, D.C.] / Freeman. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | New Britain, Connecticut. Auxiliary policewomen and regular police working together during an emergency blackout. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Robins Field, Warner Robins, Georgia. Convoy of trucks belonging to the Air Service Command practicing movement during a blackout. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Blackout" by Carlos P. Commentary: "One of those nights, without light and TV..." | "Wind Turbine" by Caron Wiedrick Commentary: "Wind turbines are becoming a greater source for our energy and one I think that will be looked into more after the blackout that effected NE US and Ontario . Magnificient size as seen by the people at its base (this is a small one..) And the sound is asto" |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | India | Cable operators in New Delhi and some other areas held a 3-day blackout during the Olympic Games in 2000 to demonstrate their concern over the measures. (references) |
Saudi Arabia | During the year, the Ministry of Information continued to relax its blackout policy regarding politically sensitive news concerning the country reported in the international media, although press restrictions regarding reporting of domestic news remained very stringent. (references) | |
Economic History | Costa Rica | In March 2001, the country suffered a three-hour, nationwide blackout, which seriously affected production of large and small companies. (references) |
Travel | Malaysia | Telekom Malaysia, the national phone company, aims to upgrade Malaysia's telecom services to the level of developed countries by the year 2005. Periodic power outages usually caused by thunderstorms in and around the country are not uncommon, although there have not been any major power outages since the nationwide blackout in 1996, which affected all of Peninsular Malaysia. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Blackout" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 96.48% of the time. "Blackout" is used about 142 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 96.48% | 137 | 27,138 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 2.11% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 0.7% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.7% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 142 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "blackout": have a mental blackout ♦ mental blackout ♦ news blackout ♦ radio blackout. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "blackout": news-blackout, part-blackout. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "blackout"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | bllokim truri, verbim (blinding, dazzle, dazzling), errësim i plotë. (various references) | |
Arabic | فقدان الوعي (swoon, syncope), تلاشي, عتم (cloud, darken, dip, dull, obfuscate, obscure, overcast, overshadow). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | цензура (censor, censorship, censure), временно спиране на тока, затъмнение (dim out, eclipse, immersion, obscuration, occultation), заглушаване (damping, interception, jam, jamming), безсъзнание (insensibility, suspended animation, unconsciousness), причерняване. (various references) | |
Chinese | 灯光传暗, 暗轉 . (various references) | |
Czech | ztráta vìdomi, zatemnìní (darkening, dim out, obscuration), zákaz vysílání, zákaz (ban, estoppel, inhibition, interdict, prohibition, taboo, tabu). (various references) | |
Danish | black-out (flight blindness), blackout, radio-blackout (radio blackout). (various references) | |
Dutch | blackout (flight blindness), wegvallen van de radioverbindingen (radio blackout), wegval, volledige absorptie van signalen, amaurosis fugax (flight blindness). (various references) | |
Farsi | خاموشی شهر(درحمله هواءی), خاموش شدن چراغ ها. (various references) | |
Finnish | täydellinen vaimennus, sähkökatkos, radiopimennys, radioliikennekatkos (radio blackout). (various references) | |
French | black-out, trou de mémoire, interruption totale des radiocommunications (radio blackout), amaurose transitoire (flight blindness), absorption complète des signaux, évanouissement, étourdissement, éclipse. (various references) | |
German | Stromausfall (power blackout, power cut, power failure), sperre (ban, barrier, barring, blockade, boom, detent, elimination, embargo, fence, gate, interlock, lock, lock out, locking device, lockout, mental block, obstacle, roadblock), Ohnmacht (faint, helplessness, impotence, palsy, powerlessness, swoon), Ausfall (breakdown, cancellation, dropping out, failure, loss, lunge, non-departure, omission, pass, retirement, Sally, sortie, stoppage, thrust). (various references) | |
Greek | καθολική διακοπή ραδιοεπικοινωνιών (radio blackout), σκοτοδίνη (giddiness, haze), συσκότιση (curfew, darkening, obfuscation), γενική διακοπή ρεύματος, προσωρινή αμαύρωση (flight blindness), προσωρινή απώλεια μνήμησ, πλήρης διακοπή, λιποθυμία (collapse, faint, swoon), αμαύρωση όρασης στην πτήση (black out), διακοπή ηλεκτρικού ρεύματοσ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | לאבד הכרה (faint, lose consciousness, swoon), להאפיל (darken, eclipse, obfuscate, obscure, overshadow, shade), אפול (eclipse), האפלה (darkening, obfuscation, obscuration), דמדום החושים. (various references) | |
Hungarian | elsötétítés (black-out, dim out, eclipse, wipe). (various references) | |
Indonesian | penggelapan (black out, cover up, darkenong, embezling, embezzlement, fraud, malversation, scam). (various references) | |
Italian | svenimento (faint, swoon), radio black-out (radio blackout), perdita (bereavement, breakdown, damage, deprivation, forfeit, forfeiture, leak, loss, sortie, toll, waste), panna (breakdown, cream), oscuramento (darkening, dimming, obfuscation, obscuration, obscuring), interruzione totale delle radiocomunicazioni (radio blackout), interruzione (break, discontinuance, discontinuity, disturbance, hesitation, hiatus, intermission, interruption, outage, recess, stoppage), cecità del volo (flight blindness). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 灯火管制 , ブラウン管 (black, Black Africa, black box, black chamber, black coffee, black comedy, black ghetto, black hole, black humor, black journalism, black magic, black market, black Monday, black money, Black Panther, black pepper, Black Power, black shaft, black tie, blackjack, blacklist, bland, blank, blanket, blanket area, blood bank, blood elite, bra, bra cup, bracket, Brad Pitt, branch, brand, brand image, brand loyalty, brandy, brass, brass-band, brasserie, brassie, brassiere, Bratislava, bravo, Brazil, brothers, brunch, brush, brush back pitch, brushy, Brussels, cathode-ray tube). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ブラックアウト , とうかかんせい. (various references) | |
Korean | 정전 (outage). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ackoutblay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ocultamento, interrupção total das radiocomunicações (radio blackout), escurecimento completo, cegueira temporária, amaurose transitória (flight blindness), absorção completa dos sinais. (various references) | |
Russian | затемнение (adumbration). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | zamračivanje (shading), zamračenje (darkening, dim out, obscuration), gubitak pamćenja (memory lapse). (various references) | |
Spanish | pana (brakedown, breakdown, cord, corduroy, corduroys, panne, velveteen), pérdida del conocimiento (unconsciousness), oscurecimiento (darkening), lipotimia de los aviadores (flight blindness), interrupción total de las radiocomunicaciones (radio blackout), corte de corriente eléctrica, corte brusco de energía eléctrica, censura (animadversion, blame, censor, censorship, censure, condensation, criticism, denunciation, observation, remark, reproach, reproof, stricture, viewing), apagón (brownout, failure, outage), absorción completa de las señales. (various references) | |
Swedish | medvetslöshet (unconsciousness), mörkläggning (black out, black-out, dim out). (various references) | |
Thai | การเป็นลม (swoon). (various references) | |
Turkish | bayılmak (adore, be a sucker for, be enamored of, be enamoured of, be fond of, be taken by, be taken with, commune with oneself, conk, enthuse, faint, fall for, lose consciousness, pass out, swoon), bayılma (faint, fainting, swoon, syncopal), yayının kesilmesi, kendini kaybetmek (be overwhelmed, fly off the handle, forget one's manners, lose consciousness, lose oneself), kendinden geçmek (be beside oneself, commune with oneself, get carried away, go into raptures, let one's hair down, lose consciousness, lose oneself, pass out), kendinden geçme (abandon, ecstasy, frenzy, rapture, stupor, transport), karartmak (becloud, bedim, befog, black, blacken, cloud, darken, dim, dim out, fade, fade out, fog, lour, lower, obfuscate, obscure, shadow), karartma (darkening, dim out, obscuration), kararma (fade out, gloom, nigrescence, obscuration, tarnishing), gizli tutma, örtbas etme (dissimulation, palliation, suppression, whitewash). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | світломаскування (dim out), затемнення (eclipse, ecliptic, obfuscation, obnubilation, obscuration), провал пам'яті. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "blackout": blackouts. (additional references) | |
| |
"Blackout" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: backout, Blacktoft, blockout. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "blackout" (pronounced bla"kou't) |
| 3 | -k ou' t | breakout, checkout, cookout, knockout, lockout, lookout, shakeout, stakeout, strikeout, takeout, walkout, workout. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-c-k-l-o-t-u" | |
-1 letter: backout, outback. | |
-2 letters: cobalt. | |
-3 letters: about, baulk, black, bloat, block, bucko, caulk, cloak, clout, octal, taluk, tubal. | |
-4 letters: abut, alto, auto, back, balk, blat, bloc, blot, boat, bock, bola, bolt, bota, bout, buck, bulk, calk, calo, caul, clot, club, coal, coat, cola, colt, cult, kola, lack, loca, lock, lota, lout, luck, tabu, tack, taco. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-c-k-l-o-t-u" | |
+1 letter: blackouts. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
