black hole

noun

Updated on: 7 Dec 2017

Definition of black hole

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

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Examples of black hole in a Sentence

a psychopath who seemingly has a black hole where his heart should be

Recent Examples of black hole from the Web

Unseen, in the middle of it all, is a supermassive black hole with as much mass as 55 million suns.

— TIME.com, "The human species is ever-changing and with it our view of the universe.," 25 Oct. 2017
But with no light escaping black holes, astronomers using traditional telescopes – which view the universe in the electromagnetic spectrum – couldn't see anything.

— eva botkin-kowacki, The Christian Science Monitor, "Neutron star collision heralds arrival of a new era of astronomy," 16 Oct. 2017
Although the first wave detected came from one of the universe's most violent events, the collision of black holes, there is a much simpler, less destructive way to create one.

— mark johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "UWM team deeply involved in Nobel-winning work on gravitational waves," 3 Oct. 2017
In the speech, May said that the U.K. is prepared to plug the EU’s budget black hole during a transitional period that would probably be about two years after the country’s withdrawal from the bloc in 2019.

— ian wishart, Bloomberg.com, "EU Demands U.K. Turns May’s Brexit Words Into Concrete Pledges," 22 Sep. 2017
In the north, Cassiopeia clung to her throne, while in the south, the Sagittarius teapot pointed to the spot where a supermassive black hole churns away in the core of our galaxy.

— adam pretty, National Geographic, "How ‘The Land of the Stars’ Shaped Astronomy (and Me)," 2 Aug. 2016
The opening is one of the more improbable developments in the politics of the former Soviet states, among which Uzbekistan, the third-most-populous former Soviet country, has long been written off as a black hole of repression and poverty.

— andrew e. kramer, New York Times, "Once Closed and Repressive, Uzbekistan Is Opening Up," 25 Oct. 2017
Any more massive, and the star will collapse into a black hole.

— john wenz, Popular Mechanics, "For the First Time, We've Spotted a Superpowerful Neutron Star Collision," 16 Oct. 2017
As Hannah Osborne at Newsweek reports, the signals could be coming from a neutron star collapsing into a black hole or going supernova.

— jason daley, Smithsonian, "Astronomers Detect 15 Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts From a Distant Galaxy," 31 Aug. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'black hole.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.