Skip to main content
Black man

Black man

58 1.7
A man who has African ancestry and is seen as Black
  • noun
  • /blæk mæn/
translation icon : hombre negro
  • The 2016 Presidential Election Process: One Black Man's Perspective
  • young Black man
  • Black men and women
  • percent of Black men

We are black men in a white man's skin.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Black men can vote, Charles.

  • What mattered was that a black man had made it against huge odds.

  • But I think as a black man, let me be very, very clear.

  • White man, black man, white woman, black woman.

  • You know, last week we talked about do black men get nervous?

  • Just to see a black man in his position.

  • And unfortunately, as black men, we failed in that sense.

  • Because the first thing a Black man has to do is respect himself.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • Who better to connect with young black men than Tim Walz?

  • As a black man, he often faced challenges in his career that others did not encounter.

Synonyms

Black
vsBlack man
618 3.5

A person with dark skin, often of African ancestry

is specific to adult males rather than any gender
Black person
vsBlack man
131 1.2

A person with dark skin whose family comes from Africa

is restricted to adult males rather than any gender

Surface Forms

Black man singular
Black men plural

Morphology

Black + man

The meaning 'a man who is Black or of Black African ancestry' is directly and transparently derived from combining the adjective 'Black' (denoting racial/skin-colour identity) with 'man' (an adult male). This adjective+noun compositional pattern is standard and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily understand the MWE.

Etymology

Black man comes from using the color black to describe darker skin and the word man for an adult male, so together they mean 'a man with dark skin or family background from Africa'. That simple picture of color plus person explains why the phrase is used today.