black hole

noun

1

: a celestial object that has a gravitational field so strong that light cannot escape it and that is believed to be created especially in the collapse of a very massive star

2

: something resembling a black hole: such as

a

: something that consumes a resource continually

a financial black hole

b

: an empty space : void

… the archives of the past few years are a black hole.

—David Herman

c

: a dark and seemingly inescapable state or situation

the black hole of depression

Synonyms

• blank
• blankness
• emptiness
• vacancy
• vacuity
• void

Examples of black hole in a Sentence

discovered that there was a black hole in the library's collection with regard to her topic

Recent Examples on the Web

There was only a fillable form that would undoubtedly dump my request into some black hole. —Michael Ashley, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2025

Astrophysicists suspect that all massive galaxies contain a black hole at their centers. —Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 19 Feb. 2025

Because of that legacy, Guantánamo Bay sometimes evokes the idea of indefinite detention without charge, a legal black hole with no way out. —Carol Rosenberg, New York Times, 19 Feb. 2025

That incredible rate persists despite the fact that at the heart of the Phoenix cluster is a supermassive black hole 10 billion times as massive as the sun. —Robert Lea, Space.com, 18 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1964, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for black hole

• bankroll
• bedroll
• borehole
• cajole
• catchpole
• charcoal
• condole
• control
• dipole
• downhole
• enroll
• extol

Kids Definition

black hole

noun

: an invisible region believed to exist in space having a very strong gravitational field and thought to be caused by the collapse of a star